Attack of the Killer Pigeons TORCHWOOD FIC
by OrlithNightfire
Summary: TORCHWOOD FIC!When the flying rat populas...oops sorry meant pigeon populas startis doing an Alfred Hitchcock, is it the result of aliens trying to take over, or some lost artifact that wants load of birdseed okey this fic is alot more serious than it sou
1. Chapter 1: Flying Rats

KITG: Okay, I blame the meds and Emery board for this fic….its all her fault!

Chapter 1: Flying rats

"And in further news, several people have reportedly been attacked by pigeons today in Trafalgar Square. While three of the seven casualties were clocked in and out of the hospital within hours, suffering only minor injuries, a twenty-three year old woman was sent to intensive care after a beak wound to the eye. Scientists say this is an isolated account, and predict that there should be no further trouble with the birds of Trafalgar Square.

And in the sport…"

Owen stifled a yawn, flicking through the TV channels. News, more news, sports (boring, the Ashes were on . . . Australia was a sure beat, unless some mass-murdering fanatic opened fire on the team as they started their bowl), cooking show, men and motors, news . . .

Owen quickly back- pedalled a channel, and settled in to watch the most interesting thing in the base –women's mud wrestling.

Admittedly, he could get in trouble with Jack for bunking off –but that as a pretty moot point, considering there was no work to bunk off _from._

Tosh was sitting at her computer, being as annoyingly multi-tasking as ever, running some sort of linguistics schematic through the new bit of telepathic enhancer they'd scooped up from the bottom of the Thames while she IMed Gwen from the other side of the room. She was, from what Owen could glimpse of her monitor, telling Gwen how to upgrade her computer. In Owen's opinion though, to judge from the acronyms liberally scattered over the text like sprinkles on fairy bread, the main content of the message was going over Gwen's head and straight into orbit.

Gwen sighed. She was, at the moment, playing secretary to Jack, partly because she was bored, but mostly because there were certain things you didn't ask Jack to do when _he_ was bored. The last time she had let him on the phone during a lull, the head of the CIA had refused to speak to them for weeks.

Stick-it notes were liberally plastered to the manila folders on her desk. _Tell UNIT we don't **have** the damn Vergoan ship_ was a typical example, with another note slightly below it reading _Get Ianto to stash the ship somewhere UNIT can't trace it ASAP._

Gwen rolled her eyes. So much for interdepartmental cooperation . . .

Flicking aside a note marked, _Let HRH know dinner on Friday is fine_, Gwen looked up at Jack's open office door. Inside, she could see Jack cleaning his gun for the fifth time, and occasionally sneaking glances at Ianto as he pottered happily around the little kitchenette.

Subtlety was obviously not Jack's forte . . . she never would have pegged him and Ianto though. After that whole thing with his girlfriend becoming a Cyberman and nearly killing them all . . . but then, that was part of the weirdness of life at Torchwood.

She could see Jack was getting bored…and that was always a bad thing. Last time he had been bored he had packed them off on a team building exercise…which turned out to be a few days in a boot camp.

It had _not_ been a resounding success. Owen had fallen face-first into a pile of stinging nettles, Ianto had pined without his kitchen, and Gwen had managed to get involved in the Cardiff version of a Spanish bull-fight, ending with Jack stunning the irate bull.

When an alien threat had popped up halfway through the little trip, the three of them could have kissed it in gratitude. Pity they had ended up having to shoot the thing . . .

Ianto was still bustling happily in the kitchen, like some sort of eager participant in Happy Families, and Gwen felt her interest piqued. True, anything more exciting then watching the fungus grow on Owen's left-over curry would have gotten her attention, but Ianto had been nearly jumping around like an excited toddler with the package she and Owen had helped him get in this morning.

"Oh yeah baby…you get 'er!"

Gwen just rolled her eyes. Owen could be so annoying sometimes. It made it hard for her to understand why she had slept with him. If they had met outside Torchwood she never would have given him the time of day . . . but again, that was the strangeness of Torchwood.

"You're such a pig, Owen!" Tosh exclaimed, as she spun on her chair and caught him with the mud-wrestling. Through a little manipulation on her computer, she flipped the channel back to BBC news.

"Oi! I was watching that!" Owen protested.

"Well unless its alien mud…it's not important." Tosh ignored his whine with the skill of long practise. Gwen just smiled as Owen started to sulk.

The sound of combat boot shod feet down metal stairs rung out as Jack descended from his office.

"Okay, its official . . . I'm bored," Jack sighed as he looked at his team

"Run for hills . . . Jack's bored," Gwen wailed in a doom voice. "We're all gonna _die_! Let's throw Owen to the Weevils while we have the chance!"

Ignoring Owen's affronted look, and Tosh's hopeful expression, Jack laughed, swinging around behind Gwen's chair and putting her in a neck hold.

"You find my boredom amusing, PC Cooper?" he asked in a mock-stern voice.

"Immensely, sir," she agreed, laughing as he poked her in the side and looked up at the news

"Terrorists, lottery, Jade Goody . . . I swear she's an alien . . . lets go and get Jade Goody!"

He got a mad gleam to his gaze as he looked to each of them. Tosh and Gwen exchanged looks. If someone didn't act quickly, they could very easily find themselves out on a hit.

"Jade's not an alien," Tosh smiled a smile of infinite patience, as if she was dealing with a 5 year-old

"No, I'm with Jack on this one . . . she has to be . . . with that mouth . . . maybe she tries to suck a man's brains out through . . ."

"Shut up Owen!" Tosh and Gwen shouted at the same time.

"You didn't know what I was going to say!" Owen whined.

"Yes," Gwen retorted. "We did."

Abandoning Owen and his twisted mind, Gwen wandered over to Ianto. He had been very quiet in the little kitchen area of the hub. Jack had appropriated the remote from Owen and was flipping through the news channels, making bored comments with every flick.

"Maybe that tornado's the result of an alien secret weapon!" Gwen heard him say.

"Jack, it's not even a proper tornado," that was Tosh's voice, the infinite patience wearing slightly thin. "It's not even a storm."

Jack's voice, affronted. "Well, it could be!"

"Everything alright, Ianto?" she asked, skipping up into the little alcove.

It was very hard to read Ianto. You never knew it he was happy, sad, pissed off . . . he just was there. But this time he seemed glowing. Ianto moved to one side to reveal a shiny coffee machine. It was one of the old types, all shiny copper and brass, like it had just come out of a French café.

"Oh, new coffee maker?" she remarked, impressed. "God, I haven't seen one of these in ages."

"I was just about to try it out. Would you like some?" Ianto asked in his butler like tone.

"Coffee from a machine like that?" Gwen grinned. "Please."

Gwen walked back to her computer to continue writing. Tosh was still upgrading hers, around her the various screens showed the external cameras. None of them were paying much attention to the screens.

But, if they had been, they might have noticed the pigeons sitting round the millennium fountain all turn towards the few civilians that were milling around.

The birds seemed to move as one towards them, hopping along the ground then jumping to the wing and swooping in on the poor pedestrians. They tried to run from the assault but ended up getting pecked and scratched, disappearing under the magnitude.

Back in the hub Owen was walking past Tosh's desk when he looked up.

"Um guys . . . the flying rat attack today . . .?"

"Flying rat?" Gwen looked confused.

"Sorry, meant pigeon attack."

"What about it?" Jack was about to take a bite out of his sandwich when it disappeared courtesy of the pterodactyl. "Oi!"

The prehistoric reptile looked quite smug with itself that it had gotten the sandwich off him.

Until it actually tasted it, that is.

She screeched, spitting the offending item out. It landed with a slight sploosh in the bowl at the base of the fountain.

"Ha, that will teach you! Nick my Marmite sandwich would you"

He missed his entire team cringed at the mention of Marmite.

"Well," continued Owen, undeterred, "whatever it was….it's happening outside," he nodded his head towards Tosh's monitor

They all rushed up, crowding round Toshiko and almost burying her slight form. They watched as birds swooped in attacking the people. Already they could see the marks of blood on the ground. One woman was writhing around, her hands over her left eye, her face covered in blood. Then as soon as it started it stopped. The birds flying away in fright and confusion.

"What the hell?" Jack exclaimed

"Okay, what the heck was that?" Owen just looked at the footage as police and ambulances turned up.

"Freaky," Gwen whispered.

Owen's eyes lit up. "Hey . . . maybe it's a take over the world thing!" he exclaimed.

"Yeah right . . ." Gwen rolled her eyes, and started flapping her arms.

"We are the master race," she cooed, "The time of man is at an end. The flying garbage disposal systems will rise! Give us all your bird seed…coo"

Jack snorted into his coffee and Tosh tried to hide her smile.

"Right people," Jack looked happy, for the first time that day. Well, the first time that day while Gwen could see him, anyway . . .

"Let's get to work. Owen, go out there and get some of those birds for examination. Tosh, check to see if there is any signals or anything that could cause the flying rats to go crazy. I want to know what could cause massive aggression like that, and why just the pigeons? Gwen . . . you're with me. Let's go and see what your old friends at the station say."

Jack grabbed his RAF jacket, the slate grey material giving him more presence…if that was possible.

Gwen picked up her leather jacket and ran after him; they decided to go through reception, as suddenly appearing in the paved centre near the millennium fountain with all that going on would draw attention, even if the entrance was shielded from view.

What they appeared into was nothing more than chaos. To think this was cause by flying rats seemed impossible to conceive. Police were moving around as if they weren't quite sure how to react to this. Already people were claiming it was a result of bird flu, making the winged creatures to go mad. Others were sprouting the usual end of the world stuff and still more were saying that the time of the animal's retribution against human cruelty was at hand.

Gwen walked up to Andy, her old partner. Not for the first time she felt the guilt for suddenly leaving the force. It was never plainer as Andy now regarded her with varied wariness and distain. No one in force liked Torchwood. And to be absolutely fair, why should they? They came in and covered everything up, leaving nothing for the police.

_We come in_, Gwen corrected automatically, then smiled.

"Hello, Andy."

"Hello, Miss Cooper," he replied in an icy tone.

"What happened to Gwen?" she asked, keeping her smile with difficulty.

"Yeah, what did happen to Gwen?" the tone was the same as before.

She sighed. Well, if Andy wanted to play it that way, she wasn't spraining her neck to be friendly.

"So what have you found out, Officer?" Gwen asked, keeping her voice "strictly business".

"Seems some birds decided to attack the populace . . . or has Torchwood made you go blind?" he indicated the scene of blood in the area. She could see Jack looking at what was left of someone's eyeball.

"I could see just fine thank you Officer. Now if you will excuse me" She made a move to go after Jack, but a restraining hand was laid on her arm.

"What do you think you're doing?" Andy snarled at her. "This is a normal investigation. Torchwood doesn't need to be here. I think we can handle it."

"Do you want me to read the small print on my ID?" Gwen was now officially sick of being fair, and just wanted Andy to back the hell off.

"I can, you know. We have jurisdiction over any investigation we deem necessary. And Andy" Gwen smiled at him icily. "For the sake of our friendship, I suggest you take your hand off my arm before my boss walks over and makes you take it off me. He doesn't like people hindering his investigation."

Andy looked to where Jack had been kneeling before. He had been engrossed on the lone eyeball –but now his full attention was on Andy, and he did not look happy.

Slowly Andy let go of Gwen's arm. Without saying anything or turning back Gwen walked towards Jack. His gaze never left Andy's, and Gwen felt sorry for her old partner. Jack just had a way of either making you think he was your best friend . . . or worst enemy.

Jack still hadn't moved his gaze from Andy. "He giving you trouble?" he asked.

"Nothing I can't handle. The usual "_you're on my turf"_ argument," Gwen sighed as she looked to the eyeball.

"If you need…" Jack left the question open. Letting her decide what she would like him to do.

"No, its okay, Jack. If I can't handle one officer, then I'm no good to you." Gwen dismissed her feelings about her past friends for the moment to get on with the job. "Any idea's what this could be?"

"Could be many things. The Rift could be causing them to go mad"

Gwen disagreed. "If that's so, why now? Wouldn't it have been a more gradual thing?"

"True." Jack looked thoughtful. Gwen could see Owen walking towards them now, he had in his hand he held three clear plastic bags, a dead pigeon in each.

"And why only pigeons?" he added to her question.

"So is it some kind of mind control?"

"Who the bloody hell would want to control pigeons?" Owen joined the conversation.

"Tosh," Jack talked through his Bluetooth to Tosh in the hub, "found anything?"

"Nothing, although if it is some kind of control, I wouldn't expect to find anything. I'm setting up a program to search in case this happens again. If it does, we'll be able to find out for sure if they are being influenced by something." She replied.

"Okay, looks like we have learned all we can here. Let's go back to the Hub." Jack turned to walk back but tripped over something. He managed to stop himself falling onto his face, looking as though he had skipped.

Gwen looked down to see what he had tripped over. At first she couldn't see anything. But then it flashed in a rainbow of colours like the sheen on oil. She reached out to pick it up, feeling the hairs on her arm stand on end like static.

"Jack?" she said cautiously.

Jack, alerted by her tone, came over, then frowned when he saw her hands apparently empty. He opened his mouth, then shut it abruptly as he too saw the flash. He shot a look at Owen, who handed him a bag. Taking the thing almost reverently from Gwen, he placed it inside. His hair was standing on end, like a ghost caress to the skin.

"Don't know what it is . . ." he said, in answer to the pair's enquiring looks in his direction. "Haven't seen this before, and that's not a good thing. Come on lets run some tests."

Jack spun back to the reception, his coat flaring out behind him. The three of them walked together, side by side as they passed Andy and a pair of his coppers. Jack gave Andy the evil eye again, as though just to make his point clear, which Officer Andrew was more than happy to pay back in kind.

Then he looked back at Gwen, and she saw that all three of the officers were glaring at her with a dislike that seemed to border on active hatred. She shivered almost unnoticeably under the looks, something that did not go unnoticed by Jack or Owen.

She almost smiled when she saw Jack double his evil glare, joined this time by Owen.

_He may be a wanker,_ she thought dryly, _but he's our wanker._

But, now she realised that her past was finally closed. The bridges had been burnt, never to be repaired. Jack was looking at her now, and she knew he'd caught the moment of her revelation. She elbowed him gently, in a sign she was okay...or she would be.

None of them saw a lone pigeon look at them with its beady black eyes that flashed red . . . before flying away into the darkening sky . . .

TBC...

KITG: Don't ask me what i was on when i thought of this...as i have no idea :)


	2. Chapter 2: To Kill A Mocking Bird

Chapter 2: To kill a mocking bird.

The Scanner pulsed around the strange alien device they had found in the aftermath of the second attack. You wanted to look twice at the thing as it would disappear, then reapperaer in a flash of rainbow colours again.

"It's like it has some kind of…" Tosh seemed stumped for a moment. "Phasic shield."

She put the scanner display on the main screen. It showed a 3D model of the device so they could clearly see the shape of it. It was like some medallion or some link in a chain. It definitely looked like it had been attached to something else. Along the sides where various readouts with numbers and measurements. All went over everyone's head except Toshiko's

"I can't believe I have just done an autopsy on a pigeon!" Owen exclaimed, his disgust clear as he ripped off the white gloves and tossed them into a nearby bin.

"Anything interesting?" Jack asked, standing to one side with his arms crossed across his chest. Gwen was sat at her computer, glaring at a rotating cube pattern screen saver.

She was on the phone to some Officer in London, trying to gain some new information from them. But it seems what happened at Trafalgar square was exactly the same as here. Without warning, the birds had just attacked commuters and tourists alike. And nobody had the foggiest idea why.

"They were infested with ticks, which I might add a really disgusting. They look normal. But what do I know? I'm a doctor, not a bloody vet!" Owen slumped down on his seat, and leaned back in mock-fatigue.

Ianto walked passed handing coffee to everyone; Gwen nodded her thanks, her scowl momentarily transformed into an expression of open lust as the aromatic smell of the vanilla coffee hit her nostrils. Jack gave her an inquiring glance.

_Need anything? _his eyes asked.

Gwen held up a finger. _Just a minute._

Owen leaned over towards Jack. "Wanna play the game?" he asked.

Jack looked thoughtful. "Usual pool?"

Owen nodded.

Tosh nudged Ianto. "My favourite part of watching interaction with normal humans," she told him.

Ianto frowned. "What is?"

"This is Owen and Jack's latest game," Tosh, looking pleased. "They only started last week. Sit back and enjoy the show."

Gwen shook her head, glaring at Jack. He responded with a kicked-puppy look.

"Please, Gwen," he begged. "Please? Don't make me use my boss-in-authority-voice."

For a moment, they tried to stare each other down –but it was Gwen who looked away first, her traitorous lips curving into an unwilling smile.

Before she could say anything though, there was a slight click, and the classical music that had been playing in her ear and driving her mad shut off.

_Do it quietly, _she mouthed.

Tosh and Owen looked expectantly at Jack.

"She's been put through to the Commissioner," he predicted.

Gwen glared at him to keep his voice down. "Thank you for agreeing to speak to me, sir . . . yes, I am aware that a Commissioner has a lot of demands on his plate. . ."

Jack smirked. "He'll tell her what he found. . ."

"And around how big was this object, sir?" Gwen asked, rolling her eyes. "Yes, we'll arrange for one of our team to come and collect it . . ."

"Now," announced Jack, but in a low voice at Gwen's dagger look, "he'll ask where she has the authority to just snatch things off him like that."

There was a long stream of rather loud conversation from the other end of the phone, and Gwen said patiently, "Yes, sir, I think you'll find we are actually allowed to remove anything we judge to be within our jurisdiction. And that includes . . . yes sir, I am perfectly willing to risk my career in a court case for insubordination, but we'll still be sending someone down!"

"Now he'll back off, start being apologetic," Jack forecast.

"Yes sir . . . no sir, that's quite all right. We're sorry to have to interrupt you like that . . . for the time being I suggest you put it in a secure place and don't let anyone near it. It may be harmful. . . no sir, but best to be safe. . . thank you, sir."

Gwen placed the phone back in its cradle with a sigh. Even in the force she had hated talking to commissioners. They were always so stuck up, more politicians than police.

This one, out of three possible lectures (the "who do you think you are?" lecture, the "spluttering indignant war veteran" speech, and the "just who are you Torchwood people anyway?" demands), he had chosen option three. He had given her a piece of his mind, and informed her that Torchwood were _"unlawful, secret service wanabes"_ and had wanted to know just who Torchwood answered to…..which got Gwen thinking. Who _did_ they answer to?

Meanwhile, Jack, grinning smugly, was accepting a small pile of notes from Owen.

"One of these days," Owen was saying, "You're gonna slip up big time. And I'll be there, raking in the cash."

Tosh sniggered, and Ianto took his coffee cup.

Jack shrugged. "Whatever keeps Doctor Frankenstein happy," he agreed, pocketing the notes. "I think I'll buy myself a new –"

"A-_hem_," Gwen looked impatient. "Can we get back to the real problem here?"

"Owen's ego?" asked Tosh innocently.

"Seems they found a little toy just like ours," Gwen indicated the device in the stasis field. "Told them to place it under lock and key….it's amazing how quick they comply when you hint at radiation"

"Good. Gwen, you'll have to fly down to London to pick it up. You have a better idea how to handle the red tape at New Scotland Yard. God, I hate dealing with the Met….they're even worse than the Welsh police." Jack put his face close to the device.

"Oi! And just what is that supposed to mean?" Gwen complained, levelling him a killer gaze.

Jack blanched as if he had suddenly realised he had said that out loud.

"Nothing, nothing. You shouldn't worry….you're not police anymore."

"Might I remind the great Captain Jack Harkness that this ex-police officer kicked your butt while still a police officer. Who figured out Suzie had been killing people? After taking Ret-con as well."

She poked Jack in the chest with her finger. Jack raised his hands in a placating manor.

"Okay, okay….you were a brilliant copper and I bow before your detective skills. Now will you stop poking me?"

"Good boy," Gwen smiled, giving Jack a quick peck on the cheek.

"Aww so sweet…I think I might be sick" Owen made retching sounds, and Gwen smacked him on the shoulder.

"Right guess I will see you lot later. Don't go chasing aliens without me!" Gwen waved to them all.

"Take care Gwen," Tosh shouted from her desk.

At the door, Ianto handed her a thermos.

Gwen unscrewed the lid a fraction, and smiled blissfully as the scent of vanilla coffee rose to meet her.

"Ianto," she said gratefully, "you're amazing. If I didn't have Rhys, I'd be giving Jack a run for his money."

Ianto's eyes twinkled. "You assume that he's paying me," he responded, dead-pan.

Gwen laughed, and gave him a kiss on the cheek. Owen snorted in the background.

"Don't I get a kiss?"

"Do something for me and I'll think about it." With the rattling of Servos, she was gone as the large round door closed.

Suddenly, Tosh spoke.

"Jack," he turned at the concern in her voice. "It just started giving off a signal…very weak but it's there."

On the screen that held the 3D representation of the device, waves were emanating out of it like ripples in water. Above them Myfawny called in agitation, tilting her head sideways to look at the device uneasily.

"Could it be affecting her?" Tosh asked thoughtfully.

"It could be. Their brains are linked the same way as a pigeon's."

Everyone gave Ianto a strange look.

"I Wanted to be a Palaeontologist when I was young." Ianto almost floated out of the room, smugness radiating from every pore in his body. His comment added, he went to make more coffee.

"Where is the signal coming from?" Jack and Owen leaned over the back of Toshiko's chair

"I can't place it; it's bouncing all over the place." Toshiko's fingers where a blur as they flew over the keyboard. But the solution evaded her no matter how hard she tried. One moment it was in London, then in the hills surrounding Cardiff, then further a field to Hong Kong or the Arctic.

Behind them came the sound of fluttering wings….all turn to the morgue. The sound grew, until one pigeon came to sit on one of the railings.

"Coo" The pigeon sounded like all other pigeons. But this one was slightly difference in its appearance. Mainly to the fact that it's insides were hanging out after Owens autopsy.

"Please tell me I'm not looking at a zombie pigeon," Owen sighed as they all moved close together.

"Give it back." everyone blinked at the voice emanating from the pigeon. It sounded like a parrot, the quick words from a throat not used to human speech.

"And please tell me I am not now talking to a zombie pigeon."

Jack looked mystified. "Yep, we're talking to a zombie pigeon."

"Pigeons, plural," Tosh pointed to the two others that landed beside the first. One on either side.

"What do you want?" Jack addressed the pigeons.

"Give it back…coo," the one that had spoken before now sat in the middle

"Coo….give it back," the one to the left called

"Give," the last one a garbled call, as its head was to one side, its neck clearly broken.

"Why do you want it?" Jack addressed them again.

"GIVE" this time the voice deeper, it could never be created by the primitive vocal cords of a pigeon.

All three pigeons took to the wing and began to zoom towards them; the one with the broken neck never made it that far. Seems Myfawny was peckish. She snapped it straight out of the air, and had it down with two bites.

The other two headed straight for them, as one headed towards Toshiko she grabbed the nearest thing to hand…which happened to be Owen's metal baseball bat. She swung it with all her might, with a resounding "_THWANG!" _ The pigeon was hit straight into the back wall with a small squelch.

"Wow….go Tosh" Owen exclaimed.

Both looked to Jack as the repeat of his Webly pistol rang out in the confined space….all that was left of the pigeon was a bunch of feathers.

"That was slight over-kill," Tosh said, looking slightly queasy as Myfawny eagerly devoured Jack's remaining bundle of down.

"I know…great isn't it?" Jack replied with his cheesy grin on his face. "Tosh, I think we need to see inside this thing."

"I'll do an ultrasound right now," Tosh hurried back to her desk.

"Owen, think you need to do another autopsy," he commented. "The last one wasn't very good, considering the bird's just talked."

Owen seemed to decide to let that one go. "I'll try" he agreed. "with what's left of them, at any rate."

"After you're done…burn them."

Owen picked up what was left of the one Toshiko had hit with his bat, hanging limply in his hand, and walked towards the autopsy room at the back of the hub.

Jack, meanwhile, went back to his office. he had a few phone calls to make….

8888888888

Gwen walked from the hub and went to her car. She did not see the lone pigeon trailing behind her. It followed her to the airport; it followed her plane to London where it got more followers as she passed Trafalgar Square to reach New Scotland Yard. Then it waited for her outside the station.

As Gwen walked into the reception office the officer behind the desk looked up. The young lad smiled at her, which she returned in kind.

"How can I help you miss?" he asked, in a strong London accent.

"Hi, I'm Gwen Cooper," she introduced herself. "I'm here to see Commissioner Bullworth." Gwen brought out her Torchwood ID. The young officer looked at it closely before handing it back to her. She could feel the atmosphere change as he realised she was Torchwood.

"Right you are miss, just sign here and I'll let him know you're here" Gwen sighed the Visitor book as the young officer picked up the phone and pressed the button for the Commissioner. "Sir, there is a Miss Cooper here to see you. She's from Torchwood. Yes sir" he placed the phone back in its cradle as he turned back to her

"I'll take you up ma'am. Richard, take over will you."

"Sure Chris" the one known as Chris pressed the door release to let her through the office, the buzz as she pushed on the door. She followed the officer through the large complex to a main office. On the door was a gold plaque with the name "Commissioner J Bullworth" stamped into it. Chris knocked on the door.

"Come in," called a voice from behind the plaque.

"Miss Cooper, sir."

"Thank you Chris, that is all."

"Yes sir." Chris waited until Gwen had walked into the office before closing the door.

"Please sit down Miss Cooper," he indicated the chair opposite as he rose from his.

He walked to a large safe in one corner. It almost looked like the safes you would have in banks –one of those safes that used for the crown jewels of small, influential oil countries.

If Gwen stood next to it, it would have reached above her waist. The Commissioner took out a long key. Placing it into the lock there was a soft clunk of well-oiled hinges as he opened the large door.

"I believe this is what you came here for" There, in a plastic evidence bag, was a copy of the artefact they had found earlier that day. But this one was slightly different –it looked bigger for one thing.

The Commissioner handed the item to her. Now it was in her hands, she could see they were in fact two in the bag, still linked together with what seemed to be chain links. So theirs was part of a bigger object. Exactly how big would be impossible to tell.

"Yes. Thank you sir" before the Commissioner could protest Gwen placed the item into a box she had been carrying with her. The small pack had the biohazard symbols clearly displayed in its sides. "I'd best get this back to Cardiff as soon as possible.

"What exactly is it?"

"It's too early in the investigation to disclose that information" Gwen replied, her tone all business.

"But surely…"

"I'm sorry sir, but we have reason to believe someone inside the Met is working with the organisation importing these devices. So I can tell you no more."

"I don't like it, you Torchwood riding rough shod over my lads. Just who keeps you in line I'd like to know?" Bullworth narrowed his eyes at her. His greying hair catching the light making it seem like shining silver, and his eyes were a deep emerald shade Gwen had a feeling would have had the women fawning over him in his youth.

"I'm sorry sir, but I really must go and catch my flight," Gwen kept her voice neutral.

"Get out of my office," the man snapped. "Damn Torchwood, think they're all high and mighty. I have no use for upstarts like you lot . . ." with a trail of muttered comments about useless braches of the government following her, Gwen left the station. She never really realised how deep the animosity between the two forces ran. This could be trouble in the future.

Gwen found herself back at the airport. She booked a seat on a small charter plane. The two jet engines more than enough to travel that distance. As she waited to board her mobile rang. She looked at the display. "Rhys Calling"

"Hello sweetheart," she said in greeting.

"Hi babe, when are you going to be back?" Gwen looked at the clock –it was already nine.

"I think I'm going to be late," she said apologetically. "I'm in London at the moment."

"London! What the hell are you in London for?" Rhys exclaimed, his disproval coming out of the phone in waves.

"I had to pick something up from the Met, my boss didn't trust anyone else to do it," she tried to kept her voice calm. It wouldn't help with them getting into a shouting match.

"You could have at least warned me!"

"I didn't have time, and I didn't think it would take as long as it has. Look I'm catching the 9:30 flight from London. I'll be back in a couple of hours. I have to drop this thing at the office for the investigation. So I was going to be late in whatever. I'll try to get home tonight. If not I'll see you tomorrow."

"Gwen we can't keep going on like this!"

"I'm sorry, Rhys. But this is important!" She was getting annoyed now. Her voice rising slightly, which Rhys matched octave for octave.

"It always is! Just tell me why."

"You know I can't do that! I can't disclose information about an investigation. But people could die if I don't hurry up"

"But what about our lives! Our relationship is always on hold. Just once I'd like to come first!"

"You do come first!"

"Well it doesn't feel like it. And to be honest Gwen, I have had enough!" he shouted down the phone.

"_Flight 599 now boarding"_ came the announcement in the background.

"Look we'll talk about this when I get back. I have to catch my flight"

"When you get back….I might not be here"

"Rhys….Rhys!"

But he had hung up, Gwen stood immobile a moment.

"_Flight 599 now boarding"_ the call broke her out of her paralysis. She ran for the plane all the time thinking of Rhys. He didn't mean it, did he?

"_Well why shouldn't he?"_ her mind snapped back._ "After how you have treated him . . . left him in bed alone at nights while you casually sleep with a workmate. Come on, get real, Gwen"_

Gwen got in her seat still agonising over Rhys.

The flight went past quickly, as her mind was elsewhere. As they were about 5 minutes out her mobile rang. She looked at the readout hoping it was Rhys…but it was Torchwood.

"Don't bother me," she sighed, and had never meant it more in her life.

"Nice to hear from you too…" Jack's voice trilled in her ear.

"Not now, Jack" she sighed. "Maybe I'll just join a nunnery. Do you employ nuns?"

There was a pause. "Nah," said Jack's voice after a moment. "their vows always come up at the most awkward moments. You know, truthfulness, honesty . . . chastity . . ."

Gwen stifled a giggle. She realised she was glad she could rely on Jack to stay consistent –even if that meant consistently skirt-chasing.

"What's wrong?" he said after a moment. Gwen could hear the concern, and mentally thanked him for it.

"Life problems. Don't worry about it, Jack. I've the artefact, and it's bigger than the one we have in the hub. Were just heading into land, so I'll be back in….." Gwen was cut off as a big _THUMP _beside her head made her jump. She looked to the window of the plane, but could see nothing wrong.

Thud,thud,thud . . . WHUMP! 

Gwen put her face close to the window, trying to see into the night sky –then snapped her head back as something banged against the fibreglass window. She could just make out the form of a bird.

Then the plane dipped, and the bottom dropped out of her stomach. She could hear Jack calling her on her phone but now the whine of the engine was louder and even though she was no mechanic, she knew something was wrong.

"Gwen! GWEN!"

"Jack!" her voice shook, she couldn't take her gaze from the window. Now the panic screams of the other passengers permeated the terror that had gripped her.

"Gwen! What's going on?"

_Thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump_

"I don't know Jack….a bird smacked into the side. No . . . oh my god, Jack, it's . . . there's hundreds of them!"

The repetitive thump like a machine gun as another, and another, and another pigeon smacked into the plane. As Gwen watched, there was a loud bang and a belch of flame as the engine exploded. The place dipped wildly, screaming its death knell.

"GWEN!"

"Oh God, Jack!" she screamed, and then the phone was knocked from her grasp as the plane bucked and writhed. The _Thumps _never stopping, just mixing with the screams of terror as the ground rushed up to meet them…….

TBC……


	3. Chapter 3: From the Ashes

"We interrupt this program to bring you the following breaking news. Twenty minutes ago, flight 599 from Heathrow to Cardiff lost contact with Heathrow air control . . . the plane lost altitude as it was about to land, impacting the ground at what experts say must have been between one hundred and two hundred miles an hour, coming to rest on the boundaries of Cardiff airport.

At least five houses have been destroyed by the planes crash-landing, and the damage has been estimated in the hundreds of thousands. However, there were no fatalities from that source, despite three elderly residents being taken to hospital for minor injuries .

There were no survivors recovered from the wreckage, which combusted upon crashing, to be put out by the Cardiff fire department soon afterwards. The death toll is expected to be in the hundreds, but no exact figures have been disclosed as of the time of this broadcast. Airport official Bruce Silo has been quoted as saying the plan carried at least sixty passengers, plus flight crew. If you had any relatives on plane 599, we recommend you call this number . . ."

The newsreader kept talking in the background as the camera switched to aerial views from the news helicopter. The scene was more reminiscent of a war-zone than anything else, littered with what might once have been houses, now lying tossed and crumpled like old toothpicks scattered by some giant child's temper tantrum after a craft project had not gone well.

And, atop it all, was flight 599. You could see the tail section, wedged half-way into someone's roof, the large metal structure cutting the building in half. Most of the main body was invisible beneath the shielding haze of thick, heavy black smoke, still lingering even though the fire was almost out.

It was worse than a battle-zone –it was madness. Pieces of shrapnel lay flung about the site, intermixed with incongruous items . . . a seat, a tray, at one point, a juice bottle from some toddler who would no longer be needing it. Everything was fire and ash and smoke and charred, unrecognisable long black shapes.

The passengers of the ill-fated 599.

Tosh looked on in horror, fighting an urge to hide her eyes.

"Oh god, Jack . . . Gwen wasn't on that plane, was she?" she whispered.

On the screen, the ant-like figures of firemen were still battling the last of the flames. A spark caught the last of the highly flammable aviation fuel, and for a brief second, the fire flared, then died.

Jack didn't answer. He didn't look capable of answering. His eyes were locked to the screen as though he could wish this whole mess impossible. Ianto stood to his right, Gwen's mug in his hand, a washing up towel hung across his arm.

"Jack?!" Tosh felt her voice begin to break, and quickly controlled herself. She laid a hand on Jack's arm, and he started as though he had been shot.

"Gwen wasn't on that plane . . . was she?" Tosh asked the question almost urgently, demanding to be told that everything was alright, that Gwen had touched down minutes before, that her flight had been delayed and she was fuming to Rhys on her phone about the hold-up . . . anything, as long as she didn't have to hear Jack say –

"Yes . . . that was her flight."

Tosh gasped, her hand flying to her mouth to stifle something –anything –from coming out, and sat down heavily on her chair, eyes wide and horrified.

Ianto seemed to have been turned to stone, his face frozen . . . but there was a smash a moment later as Gwen's cup fell from his fingers and shattered on the unforgiving stone floor.

"Well I've burned the pigeons," announced Owen, coming out from the morgue. "So, who wants chicken tonight? Suppose that should be pigeon tonight. Flame grilled…"

Owen tapered of as the mention of a flame grill made Tosh retch, hands covering her mouth again as she dropped her head.

Jack still hadn't moved . . . he just kept looking at the screen, as if looking for a trace of something or someone he couldn't see.

"What?" Owen followed their gaze to the plane crash, illuminated in high-definition detail on the main monitor. "Is that a plane crash? Oooh . . . roast humans a la jet fuel."

Tosh looked up. "Shut up Owen," she choked in a feeble voice, before her stomach betrayed her again at the thought of Gwen lying there. Her insides churned.

Owen stared, weirded out, but unconcerned.

"What's got into you lot?" he asked, noticing Gwen's cup lying in shards on the ground. "Gwen'll have your hide for that, Ianto. Is she back from London, yet, by the way?"

". . . and the breaking story again. A few minutes ago, a light commercial plane crashed on its way from London to Cardiff airport . . ."

Owen's face seemed to completely shut down as he stared blankly at the screen. Watching him, you could almost see the mental process going on --the idea forming, before he threw it away with a shaky, nervous laugh of derision.

Gwen couldn't have been on that plane. She couldn't be dead. Not after she had survived a Weevil attack, not after she managed to throw off Ret-con, for God's sake, and join their group, after she managed to survive Suzie coming back to life and nearly dying . . . if alien technology hadn't killed her, how the hell could something as mundane – something as _stupid _–as a plane crash do for her?

But the idea would only reform in his mind, truth becoming persistently hard to ignore in the face of the evidence before him.

"No….no, no, no you're kidding" Owen looked to Jack, to see him deny that this was true. But one look at Jack's face, his eyes dark and shuttered, as if one look through them might break his soul . . . that told the truth to him.

Owen sat down very slowly, as if uncertain that the chair would continue to be there when he reached it, and equally slowly, rested his head in his hands.

Like a minute of silence for the fallen soldier, the Hub became as quiet as a tomb. Except for the drone of the news caster as she continued to blithely inform the thousands now watching that their husband, lover, son, daughter or grandchild might have just been snatched from their lives forever.

For a moment, all Owen could think about was how much he was to strangle that self-satisfied cow.

All of them were thinking about different moments in their time with Gwen. Tosh was picturing her. The smile, the forgiveness she gave so easily, after she had misused the pendant. She hadn't held a grudge, hadn't avoided her like Owen had. Just accepted the mistake, and moved on.

Ianto was remembering how she had defended him to Jack in the face of his rage over Lisa, even after the girlfriend he had once loved tried to kill her. She had talked Jack down, tried to take a rational view of the problem instead of reacting in blind fear. To be honest, she hadn't known the full consequences of meeting a Cybermen, never quite realised exactly what terrible danger they had all been in . . . but that made her reaction no less exceptional.

Owen was thinking back to the times they were together in his flat, his mind always controlled by sex, even when faced with death. He was thinking of their wild nights, her body writhing beneath his as they pleasured one another, her soft caress showing more emotion than the hundreds of casual shags he had in his life.

Jack reflected on the plucky Welsh policewoman with a knack for sticking her nose exactly where it shouldn't be, and a knack for finding just what she shouldn't be interested in. from tracking Torchwood to the Millennium monument, to defying the effects of ret-con, to finding the murderer –one of their own –when none of them could see it.

Then, his mind followed that through, from the Constable, to the Woman who was his partner . . .he suddenly realised she had become his second in command, always willing to stand up to him when she thought he was wrong, bringing back humanity to the hub.

All this taken away by bloody pigeon? Oh, there was no way he was going to take that lying down. No way in hell.

"Right people, we're leaving." He grabbed his jacket from Ianto, and was not really surprised to see that the man had put his jacket on also. He was coming with them.

Owen grabbed his medical bag, Tosh her scanner and laptop, Jack the car keys and they walked from the room, determination written in every line of their bodies.

Determination . . . and the need for revenge.

8888888

A crash site is never the same in real life as on the TV. For one thing, there is the smell. A television will never assail your nostrils with the stench of hot metal and the sharp tang of burning petrol . . . and the horrible, burned smell of roasting meat that you just knew was human.

And a broadcast would never be able to give you the overwhelmed feeling of heat against your skin any time you came near a piece of metal, or the choking cloud of smoke, or the indescribable feeling of lost hope.

Television never gives you the lingering, untraceable scent of death in the air.

They walked up to the yellow tape, showing their ID's as they passed, but Jack hesitated, something catching his eyes. Gwen's ex-partner, Andy, was seated in the passenger seat of his police car, with the door open at an awkward angle.

But that was immaterial to Jack. What he wanted a closer look at was the . . . whatever it was that Andy was putting in an evidence bag.

As he got closer, the image resolved under his eyes. Something foldable, like a book, but small enough to fit in an open palm . . . a wallet? That was when it clicked. Jack was looking at Gwen's Torchwood ID.

As Jack's legs came level with Andy's line of vision, he looked up. Jack knew immediately Andy wasn't operating on all thrusters by a long chalk –his face was pale and dewed with sweat. Clearly in shock.

"She's dead . . . what I said to her, how I acted the last time I saw her . . . I. . . "

Andy wasn't making much sense, the ramblings of those who had wronged a person and knew it was too late too undo the change.

"Where did you find it?" Jack's voice was business like. As far as he was concerned it was too little too late. Andy had chosen to cut Gwen off; Gwen had been nothing but friendly to her old partner.

"Don't you even care?" Andy shouted, causing others to look in their direction.

"Where did you find it?" Jack's voice showed none of his inner tension. He had to keep his tone level, couldn't acknowledge the pain and loss burning inside him. If he did, he knew he would snap, the way he had over the phone when Suzie had gone with Gwen . . . Jack would kill to protect his team. Only now, if he killed anyone, it would be for nothing. So he kept his emotions under control.

"You killed her!" Andy was almost screaming now, most unprofessional behaviour, even for a Welsh cop. "You and your bloody Torchwood! If she'd stayed with us, she'd still be alive! You bastards! You bloody, murdering bastards!"

Andy was becoming hysterical. Jack knew he should ignore the biting words as the ramblings of guilt and grief. The proper course of action would be to walk away.

Jack hadn't joined Torchwood to follow the proper course of action. He lashed out, punching Andy in the face and actually knocking him out the open door on the driver's side of the car.

Jack was on him like a panther, his face close to Andy's as he pulled the man off the ground by his shirt-front.

"Don't you dare," he said, and his voice was level in a way that was more frightening than all the cold, hard tones in the world. "Don't you _dare_ tell me I didn't care about Gwen. Like you can talk? Little Inspector Plod, turning your back on Gwen the moment she got a raise! I _trusted_ her, and she's dead, and you try and tell me I don't care?!"

Jack's ice-blue eyes were almost black, pupils dilated with fury and grief and a blind, purely atavistic desire to beat the living daylight out of the cringing man he held.

Jack looked like he wanted to spit. With a gesture of contempt, he flung the man back to the ground and took Gwen's ID, tucking it into his breast pocket.

Tosh, Owen and Ianto watched Jack walk up, fury still coming off his form in waves. They had watched the little confrontation with Andy, Tosh had to restrain Owen from walking up and joining in at one point.

"Okay people we need to find her, the bird's obviously forced the plane down to get at the artefact she had picked up. So start looking"

All of them fanned out, Tosh had her scanner trying to find any sign of the special alloy their containment boxes were made of. Every time one of the stepped over a body the thought of "_Is that Gwen?"_ occupied their mind.

"Jack…" Tosh called he voice indicating she had found something. They all rushed over to a seat….and hidden underneath where the life Jackets were usually found was the box and in the seat, a body charred what was almost just the skeleton from the fire.

"Tosh…can you check the airline records and see what seat Gwen was in?" Jack whispered in respect and fear, as he knew the outcome. Tosh took her eyes off the body to her palm pilot. After a moments concentration she answered.

"Seat 2 row 1a," she whispered, and there on the side of the chair with the body was _2R 1A._

Tosh had to move away, the sound of her retching clear over the silence. Jack looked back down at the box, even in her terror Gwen had thought to hide the box in the section for the life Jackets. She must have pulled it out as the plane was falling and shoved the Box in there instead.

"Good girl, Gwen" He whispered, looking at where beautiful eyes would have looked back at him, full of life and forgiveness.

"Owen, get a body bag…." Jack ordered, his voice never above a whisper. "We're taking her home. She's ours and no one but us is going to touch her"

Jack helped Owen put Gwen's body into the black Body bag. Before moving her to the land rover he retrieved the containment box, he passed this to Ianto as he helped the crying Tosh back to the car. Then Owen and himself started to carry her.

"You can't just take that! "A voice rang out; a high-ranking police officer was walking towards them.

"We can and we have," Jack bit back, never missing a gentle stride as they carried Gwen.

"No you can't" the officer grabbed the body bag….big mistake. Though as much as Jack was going to, Owen got their first, with his free hand socking the officer with enough force to drop him to the ground. The man fell back like a felled tree.

"Don't you fucking touch her!"

"Owen!" Jack barked, he indicated with his eyes that they needed to get her into the land rover before the other coppers came over.

With Gwen safely in the back they sped away from the nightmare and towards the hub, none of them saying a word as they became lost in their thoughts.

And none of them seeing the pigeon now following them.

88888888

It could have been one of a million places. A cave, with a large percentage of oxygen in the air. It had a fine grainy substance covering the ground that might have been sand or dirt . . . or moon dust, for that matter.

Every now and then, a drip of water fell into some large body of water, echoed unnaturally around the closed, stone walls.

And it was to this persistent, annoying noise that Gwen woke to.

"Aaargh . . ." she moaned. Her body hurt as though she had been running miles, her head felt like an eight martini job, and her brain currently seemed to be on vacation somewhere on the outskirts of the Milky Way.

_Think! _she ordered herself groggily. _What's the last thing you remember?_

Her brain sulked for a few seconds, then reluctantly accepted that its holiday was over, and began to start working again.

She was talking on the phone to Jack as she was in the plane…then the plane had…..crashed. So was she dead? Well she did feel dead; it didn't feel like before when she had died after Suzie had taken her life for that short time. It wasn't the same kind of darkness, not the same feeling of something waiting in the darkness to devour you. Or maybe it felt different the second time around. She'd have to ask Jack, when she saw him again.

Gwen pulled herself to her feet, and revised that statement. _If _she ever saw him again.

It was too dark to see anything, but then, Gwen became aware of a light coming towards her, the soft amber glow of a naked flame illuminating rock and stone of a cave. The walls slick with lichen and water that trickled through the rock. What came round the corner was clearly alien, either that or a result of some weird lab experiment.

It was clearly a bird, but this walked on two legs like a human, the feet with three taloned toes like Eagles claws. It also had two arms; these had three front talons and one rear like a thumb. From its shoulder blades came wings, the brown feathers glinting red and yellow from the torch in its grasp. Its head looked exactly like an eagle, except for the way the great curved yellow beak looked ready to bite a whole arm off with little effort. That, she thought, might not be so much a characteristic of an eagle so much as a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

It walked up to her, nudging her none too gently with its foot. She got up slowly, noticing that her gun was gone as was everything else, her phone, ID, car keys.

_S'pose I should probably be grateful they left me my clothes,_ thought Gwen sourly.

"Follow," it called out, the voice guttural as if speaking the words was hard.

"What do you want?" Gwen asked of it, but only got a prodding for her trouble. "Okay, okay I'm coming," she groused.

She was taken down tunnel ways to a large inner chamber in the background was a large alien ship; she could see the damage from here. Burnt out sides and gaping holes. She wondered how they had got the ship inside here. Then she noticed some of the ship was merged with the wall. So it must have been here years. So were these new arrivals?

"Move!" Gwen tripped as she was pushed before the bird-alien-thing that was obviously in charge. He pulled out a large sword and pointed it towards her.

"Jack….where the bloody hell are you when I need you?" Gwen muttered as she was forced to her knees.

TBC…….


	4. Chapter 4:A phoenix will rise

KITG: I am sooooooo sorry for the wait. I've been ill, and trying to lift up my arm let alone write was a huge effort. Hopefully I'm on the mend so here is the next instalment for you.

Chapter 4: A phoenix will rise 

The hub was silent.

True, but the bland statement of fact did nothing to express the fullness of the truth. It was as though a deadening, dull blanket of memories weighed heavily down on your mind, a silence you longed to break with a scream or a yell or even a whisper . . . but still you remained quiet, because even under the noise, the silence would still be there, like a ghostly hand on your heart.

Jack sat at his desk, looking down at the silent hub. More specifically, he was trying not to look at an empty chair by an empty desk. But his eyes kept drifting back to the empty seat, and her computer, still running a program she was never going to need again.

It was wrong, it should not be like that, he was sure, as though he were looking into the face of some unutterable paradox in the weft of time.

Just as time abhors its paradoxes, so the hub rebelled against the loss of Gwen. It seemed impossible that one person could have imprinted herself so thoroughly on a building in such a short time.

There had been others, after all, more than he liked to think about. Men and women, and even one or two children, by human standards at least.

Why Gwen? Why should everything in the hub seem to smell of her, to bring back memories that only reminded him of the wound. Like the man with his sore tooth, he couldn't leave it alone. Again and again, his eyes returned to the empty chair.

Some part of his mind just refused to accept that she wasn't going to come bursting through the door, all welsh accent and black hair flying about her head, laughing, shouting, smiling . . . just being Gwen.

But no, something had other ideas. She was gone now, taken away in a ball of fire and destruction. Was she in the dark abyss Suzie had talked about? He knew the darkness . . . it was all he saw for a second of eternity, every time he died –before he was ripped back in to his body.

One second of eternity was always enough. Cold darkness, with something beyond it, something cold and indescribable just outside what you could see. Something that wasn't good or evil or stupid or misunderstood or deceptive, something beyond what his brain was capable of understanding . . . and it terrified him. Every single time.

"Sir?"

Jack restrained the automatic jerk of surprise at being pulled from his thoughts, and looked up to see Ianto, standing beside him with a mug of coffee in one hand. Jack wondered just how long he had been trying to get his attention.

"Thanks," he said hastily, standing up. He took the mug, nursing it with both hands as though the warmth could banish the memory of cold.

"You should eat something, sir." When Ianto spoke, his voice was quiet. "You look as though you need it."

"I don't know about you," said Jack, with an attempt at his natural manner, "but I don't think I could stomach anything right now."

Ianto gave a half smile that was somehow sadder than if he'd begun to cry right in front of his CO.

"Neither can I," he admitted, "but I thought I'd ask."

"How are they?" Jack asked gesturing towards Tosh. Owen was downstairs doing the autopsy, and Jack knew Tosh was all-too aware of it, since that was the eighth time he'd seen that page of text run across the screen.

"They're keeping busy," said Ianto. "Tosh is trying to figure out exactly what the devices do, and Owen's just starting the autopsy."

"Just starting?" Jack looked at his watch. Two hours had passed since Gwen's charred corpse had been laid on the autopsy slab. "What's he been doing all this time?"

"Just staring at her, I believe," Ianto kept his voice bland, like some 21st century version of the perfect butler, but Jack could hear the pain behind it.

Jack snapped, as soundlessly as the hair holding up Damocles sword. He seized the closest thing to hand –a glass paperweight with a milky way spiral in the centre –and hurled it across the room. It flew past Tosh to smash noisily on the far wall, exploding like a snowball of ice. She jumped, but Jack didn't even notice.

"I should have been able to stop this!" he fumed, voice leaking pain and fury –mainly self-directed.

"How, sir?"

"What?" Jack blinked.

"How would you have stopped it?" Ianto clarified.

"I should have been the one on the plane! I should have been able to –to –"

Ianto cut in. "There was nothing you could have done to foresee this. Gwen would be the first person to tell you to stop blaming yourself, and we both know it."

Ianto stepped in closer until he stood by Jack's side, and placed a firm hand on Jack's shoulder. Jack hesitated, then put his hand over Ianto's, grateful for the support.

He sighed, heavily. "You're right, of course. She'd be shouting at me now for just moaning to myself. Her welsh accent making all the words blur into an angry mess as she yelled at me for being so stupid. . ." Jack could almost laugh at the thought, but it stuck halfway, and came out strangled.

He glanced down at what he had been avoiding looking at even more than Gwen's empty desk –a plain manila folder with his report to Torchwood HQ about the death of his latest acquisition to the network. He knew what the first picture inside was –he had taken it himself, not very long ago, smiling when Jack had told her some outrageous and mostly true story about a Crinoid he'd married as he snapped the shot.

Hard to believe that the picture behind it was of a blackened corpse, long black hair burned down to the twisted skull. No bright, intelligent eyes looking at everything with empathy and compassion.

No warming smile as she tried to cheer you up after something that had happened to dampen your spirits.

Across the front was stamped in bold red letters _CONFIDENTIAL_, and, in smaller black letters with a white sticky label was the name, _Gwen Cooper, Employee Number 58449234_.

And obscuring all this was a new mark. Not even a full word –just three letters long, and printed large enough to cover all the previous information.

KIA. Killed in action. Such a small, meaningless word, really. It didn't even begin to describe what had happened, and yet, it did exactly that. Gwen Cooper, killed in action.

Jack felt a hand caress his face, and, for a glorious, delusional moment, he thought it was Gwen.

But the voice that followed the touch was Ianto's.

"Jack?" his voice was concerned, his usual deference forgotten in the face of it. Jack found himself trying to focus on Ianto's face, his mind returning from the memories that had threatened to swallow him.

"What…?"

"You zoned out a moment there sir" Ianto hadn't moved his hand from Jack's cheek, so Jack could feel the thumb of that hand slowly begin to caress his skin. So he turned his face and planted a kiss in the palm.

Ianto straddled Jack then inched forward to kiss his commander, Jack answered hungrily as if starved of affection of feeling. In truth to dull the loss of a friend. He needed this moment. A smile graced his lips that were still locked with Ianto's. He thought back to when Gwen had caught them at it last time. They had jumped apart as if struck by lightening, though the deed couldn't be hidden as Jacks shirt was undone exposing his muscled chest.

Plus the fact that Gwen had seen them kissing didn't help the matter. But she had just laughed and told them in a coppers voice "carry on" after grabbing the folder she had come up for. They had stood gob smacked a moment as they watched her go down the stairs, the wait for the "you never guess what I just saw" but she just walked to her desk and continued her report. Jack should have know she would not tell, after all she had never mentioned seeing him getting shot in the head by Suzie to anyone.

Jack ran his hand to the back of Ianto's neck as he crushed the man to him, devouring his mouth to taste all he could. Neither cared they were in Jack's office, that Owen or Tosh would come up and see them. They both needed this. Ianto shifted against Jack's semi-hard member making it strain against its confines. Jack moaned into Ianto's mouth in appreciation.

All this was brought to an end by the exultant cry from Owen as he ran in from the autopsy room. Jack and Ianto sprung apart trying to re-arrange their rumpled clothes. Ianto straightening his tie with meticulous adjustments. Owen came running into Jack's office as though the devil was at his heals. He did not notice Jack and Ianto's flustered demeanours, the news he was dying to impart overriding everything else.

"It's not Gwen!"

"What?" Jack exclaimed, eyes wide.

"That body in there isn't Gwen! The Dental records, DNA. It doesn't match, any of it! So that isn't Gwen!" Owen was practically jumping up and down on the spot in his excitement and joy.

"Owen, calm down. It doesn't mean she is still alive." Jack tried to be the voice of reason.

"But it was her seat! Why would someone else be in her seat?" Owen raged, trying to hold onto this glimmer of hope in the never-ending darkness that seemed to have descended on them.

"She may have put someone else in her seat, maybe they couldn't get to theirs so she gave them hers."

"Are you so determined that she be dead?" Owen raged at Jack.

"No! But we have seen too much to go on blind faith Owen! No one survived that crash. No one!"

"Well she might have! Maybe she never got on the plane"

"Owen you're deluding yourself. She was on the plane, her ID was there.." But Owen interrupted him.

"Someone might have nicked her ID".

"For gods sake, Owen! I was talking to her on the plane! I heard her fear, Owen. Heard the engines whine as the fought to keep them in the air. She was on that plane" Jack sighed.

Owen seemed to crumple again; he sat on one of the chairs in Jack's office head in hands.

"I thought…."

"I know what you thought. Look Owen we'll check see what the autopsies on the other bodies come up with. She might be in there with them." Jack stated calmly.

Owen nodded, his voice lost once more as he walked out of Jack's office. Tosh had been standing in the doorway listening to the whole exchange. She followed Owen down the stairs without a word on giving Jack a fleeting glance. Jack stood a moment before kicking his metal bin across the room; it hit the wall with a resounding "clang".

The hub was silent again . . . a silence that seemed to scream with loss. Then the alarm went off. Someone was in the shop.

Ianto walked out of the large gear-like door as it rolled back to admit him . . . and then returned moments later with someone else.

Jack took the newcomer in with one broad sweep of his eyes.

Tall, white Caucasian. Black suit, brown hair, blue eyes. Middle-aged –forty to forty-five.

Jack started to turn, already beginning to dismiss the man from his mind –but something kept his attention, made him analyse the man more closely.

He was long and thin, built like a whip on a diet. The suit was Armani, and he wore expensive leather shoes, with a weak chin and overly perfect white teeth that seemed to be noticeable even when his mouth was shut.

The skin on his face seemed to be stretched just a little too tightly over an admittedly excellent bone-structure, as though he had had one too many pin-back operations. He was alarmingly pale in the harsh lights of the hub, and there was a shifty look in those pale, almost dead-looking eyes.

Jack would have liked him a whole lot better if he didn't get the unnerving feeling the guy could have been a stand-in for Count Dracula.

"Jack Harkness?" the man shouted, looking at each of them in turn.

"Captain Jack Harkness speaking," Jack replied, wary. He didn't know much about this guy, and had a feeling he wasn't going to like what he did know.

The man looked up at him with an expression that indicated he was not entirely impressed with what he saw.

"My name is de Rano. I have been sent by some concerned . . . members of Torchwood. They have been hearing some disturbing rumours about this branch. You seem to be loosing your staff rather quickly. There are concerns about you being in command."

The wary dislike Jack felt jacked up to an active aggression. The man –de Rano –seemed to spill rather than talk, his tone slippery and about as safe as adder venom. He had something up his sleeve, Jack felt certain.

"And just who are these concerned . . . members of Torchwood?" Jack sneered, exaggerating de Rano's significant pause.

"That is none of your concern. I will need full access to this base."

DeRano pulled out a letter; but Jack didn't need to read it. He recognised at least four of the signatures on the bottom, even from this distance. That letter would give him access to everything he wanted. And cooperation, if Jack knew the Torchwood word-smiths.

Jack was helpless. It was all he could do to not jump from his perch and slam his fist in to the man's face. Instead, he gave him a vague wave which could have meant anything from "go ahead" to "get stuffed".

As he almost marched for his office door, a dangerous expression settled on his face. Captain Jack Harkness might not be much of a diplomat. He was definitely not good at conversation that involved anything soft and squishy –unless, of course, he was dating it. And he couldn't play the harpsichord to save his life.

But one thing Captain Jack Harkness was good at was getting his job done with a minimum of fuss. It had been his maxim for a while now, and he found he liked it that way. You asked for Captain Harkness, you got the job done, and you got it done without disruption.

Jack was about to be very, very disruptive.

He fell into his chair, and brought up a video call on his computer, sending a coded text to Tosh to ensure the line was secure. There was a moment's pause, and then a small green light flashed on the keyboard. Tosh had okayed the line –and then, a moment later, he was in.

The Torchwood logo spun round and round the screen as the other end connected. Jack allowed himself a small sarcastic lift of his eyes. Honestly, a Torchwood screensaver? Had these people no taste?

Then the hexagons that made up the symbol of Torchwood exploded outwards to leave the screen behind.

In the centre of the screen was the face of a man. He looked strangely ageless –not obviously . . . just in some vague, hard to define air about him. He had long black hair pulled into a ponytail behind him, and what Jack could see of his clothing was dark. He knew for a fact that what he couldn't see was a long, dark coat with a hood for discretion, and a black suit and matching shoes.

Despite that, there was something about him that meant no punks with something to prove ever tried to call him a Goth. None that Jack could trace afterwards, at any rate. And Jack knew this man very well. He ought to; after all, it had been he who had introduced Jack to the wonder that was Torchwood. And it's bureaucrats.

"Captain Jack Harkness," the man acknowledged with a faint inclination of his head. "It's been a while." His voice, Jack reflected, had the same faint lilt to it –the sort of voice you would instantly trust, whatever it said.

"Hello, Galen," Jack greeted him cheerily, no sign of his previous anger in his face. "You look sexier every time I see you."

"And, as always, you haven't changed at all," Galen remarked ironically.

"Ah, well," Jack shrugged lightly. "Only the good die young. I'm still having too much fun to die at the moment."

Galen laughed –a rare sound. "That's not what you told me the last time we went on a drinking spree," he reminded Jack. "Now, what's up?"

"Up?" Jack gave him his most innocent expression.

"Don't bother, Harkness," said Galen ironically. "Someone's got you furious –and don't bother to deny it" –Jack's mouth shut – "I know you better than your mother would, if she was ever within a million light-years of you. And besides, you never call me unless something's up." Galen leaned back in his chair with the air of a man resigned to his fate.

Jack let the cheerful act drop. "We got some slimy bastard here who says he's from Headquarters."

Galen nodded. "Name?" he asked.

"de Rano."

Galen snarled, showing his long canines –an unnerving expression snarl more animal or demonic than human.

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Friend of yours?" he enquired ironically.

"Hardly," Galen was thinking hard, Jack could tell by the way he look dead at the camera. "But I know him, yes. That snivelling _Keplagh_ had been given more sway than is his due. What is he there for?"

Galen's black eyes seemed to be tinged with an almost alien red. Anyone else would have assumed the camera was at fault. Jack did not, for two reasons. Firstly, because Tosh and Galen were both aesthetics when it came to their technical gear. And secondly, because he had seen that look once or twice in person. Both times, someone had ended up wishing they hadn't.

"He says he's here because of some concerned members of Torchwood."

Jack looked down into the hub, and saw de Rano harassing Tosh. He felt a little better –de Rano obviously hadn't worked with techies very often. Techies might not trade barb for barb, but that didn't mean they didn't find their own ways of taking revenge. De Rano was in for a rough ride on the technical side of things . . .

"I have an idea whom they may be . . . watch yourself for now, Jack." Galen locked eyes with Jack, putting across the seriousness of the matter.

"Who?"

"Verdelay. He has been setting his eyes on Rockfort's chair for some time now." Galen seemed to look out of his office a moment before looking back at Jack.

"Verdelay? Wasn't he some lower ranking pompous windbag?" Jack tried to think back. it had been a long time since he had made contact with any of the more obnoxious bureaucrats in Torchwood.

"No Jack. He may have seemed as such when you were here –but much has changed since then. Since the Daleks and Cybermen, many were promoted who might, perhaps, have been better off in their place." Galen sighed. "He had been voicing his opinions when the Sygorax turned up. He said it was proof that we should shoot first and ask questions later. But you and I both know that would do more harm than good."

For just a second, the captain and the mysterious stranger shared a look of mutual commiseration –the look of two who had seen too much of the universe to expect anything good to come of a trigger-happy culture.

Jack and Galen shared a look that showed the sign of someone that had travelled the universe and knew its terrors. Quite how a human of this time could know as much as or even more than Jack…well that remained to be seen. Jack knew some of it, but there was much of Galen he did not know.

"What do you suggest?" Jack looked to see de Rano walking up the stairs to his office, and made the universal sign for a need to cut power momentarily, drawing his finger across his throat with a warning look to the side.

"Humour him . . . until I get there."

Galen's smile was purely demonic in its look. And Jack couldn't help but join him.

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Gwen wasn't quite sure what had happened.

She had been pushed to her knees before the aliens. She could remember the leader pulling out a sword, and she had thought fleetingly of Jack, praying for a last minute rescue.

Of course, none came. Gwen made a mental note to watch less Action Adventure movies in the future.

That was, if she had a future.

Then there was pain, unspeakable pain. She knew she had been stabbed, felt like her right shoulder. But that pain was nothing compared to that which was ripping through her skull. The Voices, compelling, commanding her to do things she knew she shouldn't do.

"_Go into your base. Return it to us, find it . . . kill all who stand in your way"_

"Nooo . . ." the drawn out moan that she realised was her voice.

"_Go! Retrieve them for us! Kill all who stand in your way"_

This time there was no answering defiance to the order.

All that was Gwen Cooper was locked away inside her mind. It was here she was left thinking as she looked out of eyes that were no longer under her control.

She tried to take back her body, had been trying ever since this had begun. But every time she tried the pain would lance through her.

She saw she was walking down streets she knew well, though she couldn't quite remember how she had left the caves to get here. One moment she was sat before the leader, the thing inside her listening to his orders. Then she had appeared down a dark alleyway not far from the Millennium fountain. Now Gwen was walking to the shop that served as a front to the Torchwood base. That which was Gwen but – paradoxically –wasn't, walked through the door as if she owned the place.

Ianto was missing from his customary station, which Gwen was thankful for. If Ianto had tried to stop the thing that now inhabited her body . . . she wasn't sure she could stop it. No, scratch that. She knew she wouldn't be able to stop it. And the thought scared her spitless.

She entered her code and the hidden door opened. Gwen walked down the passage then waited for the large cog door to roll back. She saw inside the hub, Tosh was at her desk, Owen was sat at his with his head in his hands. She could just see Jack talking with someone she didn't know. Then her eyes locked with Ianto's . . .

"Gwen?"

TBC……….

I love this! Brilliant, brilliant brilliant! Sorry I've been so long, but one thing and another, you know . . .


	5. Chapter 5:The hearts betrayal

The hearts betrayal 

Like magnets turning north, all eyes instantly zoomed around to Gwen Cooper as she stood in the entrance. Even through their wide-eyed shock, the entire Torchwood team could see she was still wearing the clothes she had been in the day the plane went down.

Ianto saw her jeans, covered in mud and green lichen slime, her black leather jacket likewise . . . and also, with a dark crimson smear of blood on the left shoulder. The white tank top she had been wearing underneath showed the red stain even more clearly, like a splash of angry colour on a child's drawing.

Tosh, from her place at the computer, instantly noticed a metallic device attached to her arm, glowing white as it clung to her. Covering the whole of her forearm like a modern version of the Greek arm-shield, it ended in a pointed muzzle above her middle finger. And the way it was pointing at the team left her in no doubt as to what its purpose was.

Jack's eyes focused immediately on the barrel of that weapon. It was alien; he could tell that at a glance. Something about the feel of it, the power it exuded. But what was it? Projectile? Sonic? Energy? With the absence of either a loading hole or a power source, there was no way to tell for sure.

Owen just looked at her. There was no recognition in her eyes –even as his heart soared, Owen could see something was very, very wrong. There was no warmth in her eyes, no anger, no anything. It was like looking into the eyes of a statue of Gwen, for all the emotion she showed. But she might just be exhausted having to fight her way from who knows where, surely?

He was the first to break the stillness. He ran to her, enfolded her in his arms, tears leaking from his eyes that Jack could use for blackmail at a later date –a much later date.

"Gwen, you're alive, I knew it!" he exclaimed, pulling away to look at her. "Are you alright? You're shoulder is hurt. Let me look at it."

He started to try and take her jacket off, but the next thing Owen knew, he had been thrown across the room. And that was in the literal sense of the word. One second, he was standing in front of them, the next he was flying through the air, to land heavily against one of the walls.

Everyone stared. Gwen's entire body seemed to be frozen –even to hurl Owen across the room, only her arm had moved, like a clockwork toy, or a robot.

Then, her other arm rose to point at them all.

"You will all enter the gun chamber…" Gwen spoke, voice flat and un-emotional. She flicked the gun in the direction of the armoury.

"Gwen?" Tosh questioned, voice uncertain.

"You will enter the gun chamber..." was the only reply Gwen gave her, this time the motions with her gun slightly more menacing. Tosh backed up as Owen got up from the floor with wide eyes.

Jack slowly came down the stairs followed by De Rano, they all shuffled towards the door as with a nod from Jack Tosh entered the pass code to open the door, the whole armoury was made of glass, but it was not fragile earth material. Jack knew it was made of sand intermix with alien material. That thing could survive a nuclear blast….it had to actually once but that was a long story.

All filed in –until de Rano thought he would be smart. He swung suddenly sideways, to –

Whatever he had been planning, Gwen would not let an action like Owens be repeated. Before any of them could blink, her right arm has swung round to point at de Rano. There was a flash of bright light…and then, nothing. Where de Rano had once stood, in his expensive black suit –nothing. Nothing but swirling white dust that folded itself in the breeze as a light shone through it like a shaft of sunlight through the clouds.

"In," Gwen barked, directing them all inside. But when it came to Jack, she stopped him.

"Not you," she ordered. The door to the armoury closed, and she shot out the code device. It sparked and melted –no one was getting out of there any time soon.

"Who are you?" asked Jack, keeping his voice light even as his eyes watched Gwen –or whatever she was –for an opening. Any opening. "Cos I know Gwen, and she tends not to herd us into small spaces and break the lock. Not unless we've done something really bad," he corrected after a second, "like left a Weevil in the back of the van. Or spiked her coffee with that aphrodisiac Owen loves so much."

He wasn't sure he could survive being disintegrated. Though for all he knew he might come back together like the T1000 out of the Terminator. But he wasn't about to put it to the test.

"That is none of your concern. Take me to the device"

"What device?" Jack tried to play stupid, to bide time. _To do what?!_ his mind screamed.

"The device we found, and the one I recovered. You will give them to me." The gun was moved again and Jack could hear the building whine of a readying discharge.

"Okay, Okay. Just calm down Gwen. It's over here." Jack walked back towards the first alien artefact. It was still in the scanner while they had placed the box containing the larger piece by its side. He was pushed just past it before she made a motion for him to stop.

With her free hand she grabbed the small device from the scanner, placing it in her jacket pocket, and slipping the container strap over her shoulder. The black biohazard box now resting at her hip.

For just an instant, both of her hands were occupied, and she wasn't looking at Jack.

He dived at Gwen, knocking her right hand away as he pinned her to the floor, but it was like fighting an android. Before he knew what it was about, he found himself slammed against the wall. His feet were off the grounds as Gwen held him aloft with little effort.

"Gwen! It's me, Jack!" he choked out. Gwen held the disintegrator so close to his face he could feel the heat from the power cell. He was choking, the small hand crushing his windpipe with inhuman strength. But there was no recognition in her eyes.

8888888888

Gwen watched this from behind her eyes. She saw herself throw Owen across the room, saw herself herd them into the Armoury. Saw herself kill a man . . . then she saw herself pin Jack to the wall, saw herself push the disintegrator to his face as she choked the life from him. The choking did not concern her, he could survive that. But his body turned to ash?

With the strength of desperation, she tried to fight, but again the pain lanced across her. Gwen shrank back from the pain and the disintegrator powered up.

"_No! I will not let you kill him!"_ Gwen shouted through her mind, but it was an empty threat, a prisoner yelling through the bars of his cage.

"_**You cannot stop us. You cannot stand the pain,"**_ the voice replied, gruff, but lilting. She wondered if this is what they sounded like. Or was it what she thought they should sound like? When she had seen them in the caves, they had only tweeted and cooed, but after the pain in her shoulder and her head the voice had come. Were they looking into her mind, using it to translate for her? Like a child looking at a picture of an apple, were they matching what they saw to their own words?

"_I will stop you!"_ Gwen pushed at the entity in her mind, pain like a lightning bolt shooting through every nerve and muscle. She could feel her hand quivering with the urge to let go or grip tighter as she fought for control.

The thing inside pushed back with more force and she could feel control slipping, could feel the power unit grow hot as it got ready to fire….both her and the alien focused on her left arm to control it in that moment. And in that moment, Gwen realised how she could save Jack.

888888

Jack was about to die. Oh, brilliant. Wouldn't Galen love this? It had been death, in a way, that had brought him to the attention of Galen and his superiors. I mean, a drunk jumping off an eight-storey building, and then getting back up to climb again to the top of said building to repeat the whole performance? Someone's gonna notice something like that –and, as oxygen starvation kicked in, Jack could see his whole life unreeling behind his eyes, and found himself remembering his first meeting with Galen . . .

88888888

"What? You trying to fly or something?"

Jack looked up from his examination of the grey pavement below him, the half-empty vodka bottle swinging crazily in his grasp. Beside him, perched neatly –or not so neatly –on the lip of the roof, were the remains of at least of score of bottles. They were varying sizes, shapes and degrees of emptiness . . . but all extremely alcoholic.

"_Oh I can fly." Jacks voice was slurred as he looked to his strange man standing on the roof with him, "and if you come any closer I'll show you"_

"_You don't fly . . . more like squelch and groan."_

_Jack blinked through his drunken haze at the man. He had an almost magical voice, lilting in a way that was vaguely Irish, or maybe Welsh, caressing your ears. Which was in sharp contrast to what he wore. _

_Jack knew his sight wasn't the best right now, but he couldn't see the mans face. He wore a long coat or robe that reached his ankles, so all Jack could see were the bottoms of the black combat boots not too dissimilar to his own. The top of the coat-robe-jacket-thing hid the man's face almost completely; only the very tip of the chin could be seen in the shadow the hood provided. As the man moved closer Jack could see it was a long black coat, the black buttons camouflage with the material._

"_Stay back!" Jack slurred out. But the man just walked to the edge of the roof and sat down, feet dangling over the lip._

"_You can do whatever you want, mate. I'm just here for the view."_

_The man snatched the vodka bottle off Jack, taking a huge swig and handing it back, as if they were just sat in a bar._

"_What the fuck? Aren't you going to stop me?" He blinked at the strange man as he shook his head slightly in response. "Well at lest tell me your name. I like to know who I'm drinking with."_

"_Galen."_

"_Just Galen?"_

"_All anyone needs to know on a first date," the man told him._

_Jack laughed at that, a deep chuckle tinged with despair. "Well this first is all you're going to get. So I'll tell you my full name. I'm Captain Jack Harkness" Jack swung his arms out in a gesture some small, sober part of him recognised as over the top. The rest of him told that part of his mind to fuck off, or enjoy the party like the rest of him, and continued making the florid gesture._

_He smiled down at the man, waiting for a response. He saw the hood move and knew he was being scrutinised._

"_Are you really?" The voice seemed to be tinged with something old. Or maybe that was just the vodka. He had asked for the most mature bottle they had._

_Jack felt his heart quicken though, as if he had been caught in a lie. Who was this man? _

"_Or is it easier to borrow a name when yours is long forgotten?" the man –Galen –continued evenly._

_Jack felt as if all the alcohol was drained right out of his body and he instantly became sober, his alarm bells stared to ring about this man who knew so much. Only the Time Agency knew this much. He hadn't even told the Doctor or Rose that Harkness was an alias ._

"_Who the hell are you?" he asked, feeling as sober as he ever had in his life._

_Again the man only gave him a quick glance before looking out at the London skyline. He ignored Jacks battle ready stance as if it was a fly standing up to a spider._

"_A friend . . . if you want."_

"_I don't want any friends," the alcohol could only be held at bay so long, and Jack wasn't sure he wanted the thoughts a sober mind would give him. He bottomed-up the bottle, and felt a surge of relief at the blanketing affect of the vodka._

"_Maybe not, but you need one . . . you wouldn't be here if you didn't."_

"_What if I'm here to protect my friends?" he asked aggressively. "What if this is the only way to save them from me?"_

_A gentle laugh- almost a snort. "Save your friends? Save yourself, more like. Never have to feel the burn of betrayal again . . ."_

_By then Jack, had him by the front of the coat. He ripped the hood down to reveal a handsome face, surrounded by black hair, tied back in a ponytail so long it disappeared into the depths of his coat. His eyes –blacker than even his hair, so dark not even the pupil could be seen –surveyed him calmly, fearlessly, as though mildly interested, but nothing else._

"_What the hell would you know?"_

"_More than you think," the man replied. Not quiet, or loud, just stating the facts, even of expression and even of voice._

"_You could never know . . ." Jack was interrupted by a deep growl. He looked at the man's eyes . . . to see a glowing red tinge start at the bottom of the eye where the eye pigment began. It followed the circle of dark eye colour, the red overriding, glowing then it faded back down so only a slight glow at the bottom of the iris could be seen._

"_Please spare me the sob story, if you're going to jump do it!"_

"_I will!"_

"_Then let me help you!"_

_With that Galen pushed him off the roof, and calmly sat back down. He watched as the spectators who had been standing there the whole time screamed at the horror._

"_**Galen . . . you were supposed to get him down"**__ a tired voice spoke through the mic in his ear._

"_He is down."_

"_**I meant without more of an incident," **__came a deep sigh._

"_Oh, just give them the Retcon."_

"_**This isn't 'Men in Black'. I can't just keep drugging everyone,"**__ the voice snapped back. __**"He's getting up."**_

_Galen looked down, his hearing letting him hear the popping bones from even this high up as Jack stood up._

"_Leave him." He watched as the form sprinted to the bottom of the building…and then he waited…… "5, 4, 3, 2, 1"_

"_You Bastard! You could have killed me!" Jack panted; he had run back up the 9 flights of stairs._

"_Thought that was what you wanted?" Galen replied sarcastically. "Obviously it's not working…or did you leave some of your brain on the pavement?"_

_Before Jack could realise what he was doing, his rage and anger finally exploded. It had been building for weeks, months. The feeling of being left behind, of loosing so much, finally found an outlet in his drunken state. _

_And he pushed the smart-talking asshole off the building._

"_Oh . . . __**shit**__!" Jack didn't even dare look as he heard the screams. He had just killed an innocent person! He had just pushed him off an eight-story building. This man wasn't like him! He wasn't going to get back up. "Oh god," he said helplessly._

_Jack slumped to the ground, looking at his hands in disbelief. He didn't hear the rustle of fabric in the wind, or the gasps of surprise from below. All he could see was Galen falling off the building, the long coat flapping in the wind as he speed faster to the unyielding concrete._

"_Have you got it out you're system now?" came Galen's lilting voice. Jack spun to see Galen floating in the air with the aid of the leathery black wings coming from his back. The red glow had returned to his eyes as he regarded Jack. The wings beat in a lazy fashion as if this was little effort._

"_What are you?" Jack found his mouth asking. Galen gave a few strong beats to rise over Jack before backing wininging to land softly before Jack. Galen kneeled down before Jack, the wings fanning round them._

"_I told you, a friend"_

"_No . . . __**What**__ are you?"_

"_Human"_

"_You're not like any human I've ever seen." Jack found his hand reaching out before he realised what he was doing, and touched the wings. They quivered a moment as if the appendages were not used to anyone touching them. They felt warm, the leathery skin like membrane akin to a bat wing, only thicker._

"_Neither are you." Jack's eyes locked with Galen's._

"_What am I going to do??" he asked, almost like a child _

"_First of all you're coming with me. Not good if people keep seeing you jump off a building then get back up again. My place isn't to far from here. You're going to get your self cleaned up. Then we'll see where we go from there" Galen got to his feet and held out his hand to Jack._

_Jack took it tightly and was lifted with ease. With a smile Galen turned to walk to the stairs before he realised his wings wouldn't fit. Let alone could he walk around London with them out. He sighed. Jack waited a moment to see what was going on before he saw the wings become smaller. They seemed to fold in on themselves. There was the crunching of bone and he saw Galen's form quiver in pain._

"_Are you okay?" He touched Galen's shoulder gently. Galen nodded as he took a deep breath; the wings had gone back to wherever they came from under his clothes._

"_I'm Fine. You know as well as I do that everything comes with a price. Come on! Coffee and clothes . . . then we'll see about if you can come work with me."_

"_Who do you work for?" _

"_Ever heard of Torchwood?" . . ._

_8888888_

"Gwen, come on sweetheart. It's me." The hand quivered some more. "Officer Gwen Cooper! Stand down!" Jack shouted, in his best boss voice he could manage while choking. The gun's whine became louder, the heat grew.

"Nooo . . ."

Jack risked opening his eyes to see a moan tear itself from her lips, her eyes moving from the right hand that controlled the gun to her left.

Too late. Before the gun could discharge, Gwen's left hand smacked Jack sideways –and the energy weapon blew a hole in the wall behind him.

"No . . .you won't kill him . . ."

Her voice filled with pain as her hands gripped her head. Jack was on the floor, his back against the wall as plaster floated down from where his head had been a mere second ago.

"Gwen?"

Gwen raised her head, eyes locking with Jack as tears ran down her face.

"Help me Jack . . . oh god it hurts . . . get them out, Jack, please **get them out**!" she sobbed, she screamed, she clawed at her skull, as if trying to dig them out.

Jack reached out to help her, but she screamed . . . right before disappearing in a flash of blue light and a lingering smell of ozone.

"Teleport . . . damn!" Jack punched the wall.

"Where's the Doctor when you need him?" he whispered. For just a fraction of a second, he imagined being able to turn to someone so much older and wiser than he was.

He thought twice about that, remembered the Doctor's behaviour when Mickey –or any other male, for that matter –got near Rose. Well, someone with a sonic screwdriver, anyway.

Then he shook himself, and leapt in to action. Turning to the armoury, the rest of the team were still trapped inside, he went over the burnt out pin code lock with a sigh. How the hell was he going to get them out of there?

"Jack, I haven't put the alien code hacker in storage. It's on my desk" Tosh yelled through the glass. Jack ran to her desk pushing her papers out of the way and onto the floor in his rush to find it. He knew Tosh would whine that her papers were out of their perfect order. But they needed to help Gwen.

"Attach the blue wire!" she called again.

"What the hell was that?" Owen was pacing back and forth. "She was going to kill you!"

"No, Gwen wasn't, couldn't you see? She's being controlled by whoever was making the flying rats go loopy."

"But how the hell are we going to find her? She could be up in space for all we know!" The glass door hissed open as the code breaker made quick work of it. It was a cause for concern that it had been that easy though . . . he would have to upgrade the locks.

Later, though. Much later.

"Scan for high traces of energy," he ordered. "The power for the transport had to come from somewhere."

"Jack?" Tosh tried to get his attention.

"But that could take ages!" Owen argued. "She hasn't got the time!"

"Owen!" she tried again.

"I know that!"

"Guys!"

"What?" Owen and Jack both shouted at the same time.

"I put a tracker on the artefact . . ."

"Tosh…I could kiss you" Jack smiled. "In fact, I think I will."

He gave her a quick snog, then grabbed his coat.

"Ianto get the SUV, Tosh, you navigate Owen, get the med bag. Don't forget your weapons. It's time we brought Gwen home . . .

TBC…..


	6. Chapter 6:Into Darkness

This chapter is for kateg123, as she just gave me a review a second ago and let me know people still read this on fan fic :)

Chapter 6: Into Darkness

Galen loved to fly. He loved the feeling of the wind pushing loose strands of hair away from his face, crisp and cool and so different from the hot air on ground level, that smelled of sweat and perfume and bodies and people . . .

He savoured the fresh, tasteless air in his lungs. Well, who wouldn't love flying? Well, people with a fear of heights or something, of course, but that was beside the point. The wind almost caressed his wings, as they manipulated the breeze into channels that kept him aloft with barely any effort.

He sighed with pleasure. It was time like this that he knew the pain was worth it. The wings hurt him, every time they came out, or were put away into his back. Natural enough, really –considering that his wings were actually part of his ribs, distorted on a molecular level. They would snap and break and extend, even making knew joints so they could fold. While other bits would shoot off almost like fingers so the leather like skin membrane could stretch over them.

Unlike human skin, however, his wings were black, like a bat's. but that was because of the DNA memory of . . . well, who knew which particular alien specimen was responsible for the pigmentation? There were so many different alien pieces inside him –and he had no idea who had originally owned his rib-cage. But he knew it had been the first part of him that had been changed all those years ago.

So long ago. Now, he was off the radar of every organisation in the world. His family thought he was dead, in the line of duty, and he had no real hope for beginning again. All thanks to Torchwood.

Not for the first time did he wonder if it was worth it. But when he saw his descendants alive and living, he knew it was. Galen was now about 90 years old. He had fought in wars. Not against Germans, but aliens. When he had been in his early 30's, he was fatally injured. Galen had been carted off to the alien experiments department of Torchwood.

Well, in their defence, they had thought he was dead. Very few people tend to survive having a rogue Sontaran rip the whole left side of their chest out. The body kept alive by primitive machines to breath life into the alien lung and the one remaining human one.

Unexpectedly, though, one of the alien organs must have had some sort of cell regeneration properties. The next thing Galen remembered –after dying, of course –was ripping himself loose from the restraints and trying very hard to kill everything on the room that breathed. He could still remember the euphoric rage –angry enough to kill, and surging with pleasure at the task. His eyes, he knew from the reports, had turned red like twin molten rocks, his canines elongating into fangs as he growled like a cornered animal –which, in a way, he supposed, he had been.

When he had woken up, he had found himself in a metal cell, blood all over him. He remembered who he was, remembered the shot that should have killed him. But yet there he was in that room. He called out, banged on the door. When it was answered he had guns shoved into his face. Galen went through two more years as a lab rat, treated as a thing even though he remembered who he was.

And so he went through hell. He was poked and prodded. Small bits of him were opened up to examine again, then neatly stitched back together and left to heel. Years of being treated as though he was nothing.

In to this madness and pain a young Rockfort walked in. he was a rising star, he needed results –and he needed Galen. Someone –or something –had killed more people than you could count on both hands, and they needed someone to follow a scent.

All he had been told was that Galen was a mindless beast. The scientists didn't want to lose their little toy.

So, a broken, beaten Galen had been muzzled and gagged, dragged to the site of the latest murder. He hadn't cared. What did it matter? He did it because if he didn't, he would be put back in the box, where they would keep on partially cutting him up for fun. Most of the time, he just wished they'd finally do the job properly, and put a scalpel through his throat.

20 years had passed since the day he had been shot. The life he had was gone...his wife…his son…all of it. They had moved on –but at least they had a grave to visit.

_Here lies Galen Griffith  
1922-1953  
Loved father and husband  
Gave his life for his country._

20 years had passed since that day. His son would be 25 by now, what was he doing? Was he married? And what about his wife? Had she re-married?

He found the alien Rockfort had wanted. It was a Weevil –the first Weevil anyone from Torchwood had ever laid eyes on. Needless to say, they had not been prepared. Most of the unit had taken a matter of seconds to die.

Galen hadn't cared. Most of him was too entrenched in an apathy that had kept his sane through two years of pain and torture –but somewhere beneath that, he leered hungrily out at the Weevils, and wished they would consume the entirety of Torchwood.

As if in slow motion, he watched as the Weevil went straight for Rockfort's throat. What did it matter, after all?

Then, suddenly, an emotion he hadn't felt in twenty years surfaced. Empathy. He had been young like this man, once. Did he have a wife, children? Were they waiting for their father and husband to come home?

With a motion that surprised even himself, Galen had grabbed Rockfort and soared upwards, dropping him almost carelessly on a second-storey roof. Rockfort, for his part, had seemed shocked that a creature, a mindless beast had saved him.

Galen had just looked at him with old, tired eyes, and indicated his muzzle. With some trepidation, Rockfort removed it.

"Thank . . . you . . ." Galen coughed, voice hoarse. He had almost forgotten how to speak, after so long.

"Who are you?"

"My name was Galen, once . . . I worked for Torchwood"

"So you remember who you were then?" Rockfort had asked, surprised. "How long ago was that?"

"I'm not sure. I have lost track of time. What is the date?" Galen looked down and saw a Weevil crooning to some new friends of his, trying to climb the house. He let out a roar that seemed to have been building in his throat for years, and it fell clumsily backwards, landing with a bump.

"It's the twenty-second of February, 1975. You've been dead for 20 years"

"No!" Galen roared. Galen had known….it had tormented him. But to have it confirmed by someone who bore him no ill will, who was not a scientist, made it all the more real.

Something hot and huge and ugly built inside him –he hadn't felt such anger since he had first woken up as a monster. He turned his attention to the Weevils below, dropping down on them like an old flick of Batman, moving like lightening as he drew on powers he hadn't even known he had. Within minutes, every one of them was dead.

As the fight ended, weevil blood mixing with the fallen men of Rockfort's unit, he knew that he was lost, had no right to be alive. He was a monster now, neither human nor alien. Just a cobbled mix of beings. He also had memories that were not his own. Views of wars in space, a vast battle between metal pepper pots and human like creatures. Of the universe convulsing under the strain of this war, of the human like beings taking the pepper pots with them

Then the view of a world filled with poison, of a beach on earth and a strange man in a white outfit, he had question marks on his jumper, a white panama hat and seemed to carry a black umbrella with a red question mark handle. The name 'Fenric' seemed to bounce round his mind. Fenric was his false master, had lied to him, and had caused his world to be filled with poison

Who did these memories belong to? And why were they in his head?

"Galen?"

"Yes, sir?" Galen turned to Rockfort, trying to keep the 'sir' respectful rather than ironic. If he had stayed in Torchwood, he would have outranked this man three times over.

"Are you . . .you?"

Galen almost laughed at the fear in the young ones voice. He only looked about twenty. How had he become a commander of a unit?

"It depends what you mean by "you". If you mean, am I in control of my body…then don't worry, you're safe. But in every other sense, no. I'm not the man I was –I'm not even a man any more." For a moment, bile rose in his throat. "So I suppose you'll be taking me back now?" he sighed wearily.

"Do you want to go back?"

"Not really. It's not pleasant. Lab rats are treated better than I am"

"Then you are with me. I know your history. You can follow orders. Will you follow mine?" Galen looked at him, and then nodded.

Galen had served Rockfort for 20 years before the young one had been promoted to the leader of Torchwood, though not so young now. Rockfort had made Galen his second in command, which still did not sit right with many in Torchwood. They had not liked the fact they had put a "lab rat", for a better term, above them. But Galen made it known that he would be followed or…your ass would be kicked into the middle of next week.

88888

Galen shook his head. Why was he reminiscing? Laughing at himself Galen beat his wings to increase his speed as the coast of Cardiff came into view seeing the lighthouse rise out of the dull skyline, he landed beside it so he could walk into town, true it was pissing it down with rain but he didn't want to take any chances of being seen.

The wings folded away as always with the accompanying pain as he set off, the wind whipping the jacket around him in the small maelstrom. Galen leapt from rock to rock to the main land point as if he was a mountain goat.

Now he strolled through the city as if he owned the place, melding with the crowd in a way you wouldn't think possible of his form and headed straight to the side entrance of the hub. He walked through the door into the fake shop, seeing no one there, just the dull brown woodwork seeming darker in the dull light from above. Galen shook the rain from his form before walking behind the desk to enter his access code. The wall opened to the secret entrance to which he entered, ignoring the door closing behind him he waited for the large cog like door roll back to admit him to the main part of the hub…its heart if you will. . . He smiled, Galen had chosen the location of this base but Jack had made it his own. This was never more apparent as Galen passed the finial threshold into the hub seeing all the trademarks that were Jack.

Strangely the base was empty of its occupants, all the machines ticking over but no signs of life. He walked up to the main frame, gaining quick access he looked through the records to see where they had gone. No note could be found so he checked the CCTV of the last hour and saw the scene unfold. He could not stop the small smirk as he saw De Rano turned to have happened to a nicer guy….well, maybe to Verdaley.

He turned the sound up on the security recording, and heard Jack give his orders. He couldn't stop a small smile. He knew he had made the right choice giving Torchwood 3 to Jack, rather than Verdaley's cousin, de Rano. Not that Verdaley had even forgiven him that.

Jack hadn't helped either. He had been brash, cocky –well, more brash and cocky, anyway –and had done everything he could to wind up someone who had, at that point, been a harmless paper-pusher.

Now, that had all changed. Galen just hoped Jack didn't live to regret crossing swords with Verdaley.

Galen opened the GPS tracking system to see the location of Jacks teammate Gwen Cooper. So… she was deep under ground in one of the old coalmines. Seeing the trace of Jacks SUV they were almost to the mine. Galen decided to lend a hand. He could use the workout.

So he walked to the paving stone that lead to the surface, using the special invisible field to hide his presence. He needn't have bothered though. The rain had driven people to the warmth of their homes. Calling on his wings they came from his back with the usual popping and crunching, dripping with rain smeared with the faint pink of diluted blood before he beat them to take to the air.

Time he went hunting……

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Jack drove the SUV like a bat out of hell, which was about the same as usual….so he drove the car faster. Owen, Tosh and Ianto all checked their seatbelts were fastened for the 15th time since they set off. He drove down long forgotten roads as the rain began to fall making his already dodgy driving even worse. The roads had been abandoned after the mines had been closed, who knew how long this one had been closed.

As they came down the last stretch of the track the Coal tower rose like a decrepit ruin. The large wheel that was the trademark of them was still, the cables still connected to the lift in the lift shaft. The tower in the dim light of the storm sky looked drenched in congealing blood, the rust giving it that dried blood look. The headlights illuminated a sign causing all in the SUV to do a double take

_Gwern Coal Mine_

The similarities to Gwen's name and Mines was just too spooky, one letter difference, just one. Was this a sign? A sign that Gwen was always meant to come here? To die here? No…no Jack would not let that happen.

"Where does the tracer say she is Tosh?"

"Nearly 800 meters down" Tosh gasped

"Then 800 meters down we go" Jack went to the back of the SUV, he pulled out torches, ropes, walkie talkies and all other manor of climbing gear.

"Did I ever mention I am scared of heights?" Owen asked, looking at the large tower in the darkening sky.

"Good job we're not going high then isn't it" Jack shoved the gear into Owens arms.

"A bloody big hole in the ground! I'd say that was high!"

"It's all relative," Tosh decided to add as she walked past Owen.

"_It's all relative,"_ Owen said sarcastically, tone like a child as he pulled a face at Tosh's back.

Jack took the lead towards the mines as Ianto locked the SUV, they had enough of people nicking it when they left it. The rain was coming down in buckets by now making visibility almost nothing as the welsh weather took one of it's sudden turns. The old tower creaked and groaned as though morning its abandonment. Jack pulled at the wire mesh gates that surrounded the base of the tower, signs splayed across them, showing the same blood rust. All were warnings, "_Condemned"_ , _"Closed", "Subsidence"_ Jack ignored all of these as he placed hid boot to the gate. It swung open with a scream of rusty hinges.

As they entered the top of the mined shaft, the dark chasm ready to devour them as rain poured off in waterfalls into the inky blackness. The lift was down…obviously you couldn't see it at the bottom because the bottom was not visible. But the cables were taught as the lead from the tower and into the shaft. The spaced for the lift was empty so the cables went through a hole in the platform floor. Jack walked over to this, pulling the mesh lift gate up and out of the way he started to attach a climbing harness to himself. The others followed suit, with much complaining on Owen's part. Jack checked all the harnesses before attaching himself to the lift wire with a wire clamp.

The clamp had wheels to run down the lift wire, and a brake so Jack could slow his descent. They were almost like miniatures of what you saw above sky lifts.

"I'm not sure about this…" Owen spoke as he looked down the hole.

"You're not sure about anything" Tosh was connecting her clamp to a lift wire.

"I am! I'm sure I want to shag Angelina Jolie, I'm sure I don't want to die down this hole. And I'm damn sure this is a bad idea . . ." but even as he spoke he attached his clamp.

"Right people, take it slow this is just a walk in the park," Jack tried for reassuring.

"I hate walking" Owen interrupted.

So much for reassuring. "Shut up Owen. If you don't like walking, just fall and die" Jack snapped.

"Walking's good."

"So glad that's cleared up." Jack then turned back to the matter at hand "When we reach the bottom stay alert, we don't know what is down here. First objective is to find Gwen. Ok?"

All the team nodded their understanding.

"Then see you in hell" And with that Jack stepped out into nothingness and started his decent.

TBC…..

KITG: oh little note of trivia Gwern mine does actually exist. It's in Swansea


	7. Chapter 7:In the darkness there is hope

In Darkness there is hope

The journey down into the very depths of the earth was taking more time than any of them could have ever expected. It was like diving down to the Titanic, and took about two hours to descend to the wreck of the infamous ocean liner. Looks like the descent to Gwen was going the same way. Around them the sounds of water dripping and cascading down the sides of the shaft was almost too loud, only drowned out by a howling wind

It baffled Owen how there could be wind this strong underground, it was almost like a gale force wind in some places. Every time they passed one of the tunnels that lead off in any direction, didn't matter which, they would get level with a tunnel and their hair would be blown back. Jack's long coat was billowing as if he was on a windy beach. It was like some great beast breathing in the dark.

The dark shaft walls glinted every now and then as their lights shone off either water or some metal in the rock. It was hard to tell even with their high-powered headlamps, it was if the light was being sucked into the very walls themselves. The walls were like dark obsidian or maybe something else, like flecks of stars in a black sky that suddenly wink out.

"Okay…..this is really creepy," Owens voice seemed overly loud in the darkness, three shafts of light turned in the direction of Owen, his own light being outshone by theirs for the time being. His face was now illuminated enough that they all could see the fear in his face, his eyes kept straying down to the dark abyss below them.

"I'm afraid, sir, I will have to agree with Owen on this one," Ianto spoke in a quieter tone, as if he was afraid making too much noise would cause the breathing beast to jump out at him.

"Well if you two don't like it, you can go back up!" Jack snapped, as soon as he said it he could hear Gwen's voice in his head. _"Jack!" _Owen and Ianto went silent and the atmosphere changed. "Sorry, I'm just worried."

"We know Jack, we all are." Tosh replied for the others, her voice understanding and reassuring.

The rest of the trip down was silent, the stillness only broken every now and then by the buzzing whine of the cable passing through the metal wheels. Finally the lights from their lamps stopped being swallowed by the dark and started reflecting off the bottom. They could see the lift now, the yellow paint chipped and scratched after years of use then neglect.

Their boots rattled the wire mesh on the roof of the lift as they stopped and started to unhook them selves from the cables. Jack had his Wembly out as soon as he was free, watching everyone's back as they got themselves unhooked

"Tosh, take a look at the lift. I want to know we have a way back up if we need a quick escape. Ianto, you help her while Owen and I check out where this tunnel leads." Ianto and Tosh nodded, making their way towards the front gate of the lift.

Owen pulled out his 9mm and took defensive position on Jacks left. Together they inched down the dark mouth like tunnel. They hadn't made it that far before Owen realised something.

"Hey Jack!" he whispered to his commander "Is it just me or is it getting lighter in here?"

Jack stopped and looked about the walls, squinting slightly in the gloom. At first he thought it was just their lights, or something in the rocks –but then he realised Owen was right. He could see the light coming from round the next corner. Using hand signals, he motioned Owen to be quiet and to flank to the left side of the tunnel opening. Both of them peeked around the edge.

The tunnel opened up into a large cave, the walls were the same as the tunnels up to a certain point, for at the back of the tunnel the walls became smooth metal, here and there pieces jutted out, guns poking out from the round nodules that interspersed the wall. At the rear large holes were in the metal, scorched and blackened. It took Jack a second to realise that this was a ship. The burnt marks leading to the thrusters housing and engines. From the amount of guns, this ship was defiantly made for war, not exploration. A symbol was proudly displayed on the side of the ship. It looked like an Eagle, well…what an eagle would look like if it had two arms, two feet as well as its wings. In its hand it held some kind of trident or energy weapon. It looked like the ship had appeared half in rock and half in the space of the cave.

Before all of this stood the aliens he could only assume owned the ship, if the symbol on the side was anything to go by anyway. There were about 20 of the bird aliens that he could see, all crowded rounded their leader.

He was bigger than the others, huge, a harpy Eagle before a golden eagle –he even had the mane-like feathers of a Harpy Eagle. He was giving orders or maybe some kind of pep talk, like hell could Jack figure it out. The alien tweeted and cooed to its men, they replied in high pitch keens at the right moment.

Owen and Jack scanned round with their eyes to find ay trace of Gwen, but there was nothing. Jack hoped to heaven, or maybe hell. Beggars couldn't be choosers. He hoped and wished and prayed that she was not inside the ship. If she were, it would be near on impossible to get her out alive. He was on his own, yes he had his team with him, but it wasn't the same as having the Doctor and Rose by his side. The Doctor would have thought up some crazy plan and saved the day. But now it was just Jack with his knowledge of aliens, extensive by human standards. But nothing compared to the Doctor.

"I don't see her anywhere Jack" Owen called over. Jack looked down at his wrist scanner; it showed himself, Owen, Tosh, Ianto and one other human bio sign….Gwen. From the looks of it they had her stashed in a side tunnel just behind the assembled group. They would have to circle round without being seen.

"Owen, she's this way," Jack started to sneak round the back of the aliens to the dark recess that heralded the beginning of the off shooting tunnel. They moved from stalactite to stalagmite. Before slinking off into the shadows of the tunnel, its walls once again became covered in lichen and water. Obviously the alien ship did not extend this far. More surprising was there were no other life signs near Gwen. Did that mean no guard? Or was it some automated kind? Unless they had made some kind of cell for her, to keep her contained. She was not dead, his wrist device only picked up the living. But as to the state he would find her in…his mind had no lack of images.

They came to a dead end, the tunnel billowing out in a bubble like shape; the ground was covered in a gritty like substance that crunched under their feet. There were several flaming torches illuminating the cave…and there in the centre laid an immobile Gwen.

"Gwen!" Owen rushed over as Jack took point a moment to make sure they were safe. He looked over to see Owen turning Gwen over, checking her pulse, lifting her eyelids to find any sign that she was there with them. Jack now moved over to kneel beside Gwen as Owen continued to check her for any other injuries. Jack laid his hand against her cheek; her skin was cold and clammy, as she seemed to shiver.

"How is she?" Jack looked to Owen for his report.

"Other than the stab wound in her shoulder, I can't see any other signs of injury. But what they have done to her internally or mentally…That's any ones guess," Owens voice all business as he went into full doctor mode.

Jack had yet to remove his hand or gaze from Gwen, she looked so small to him. Even worse than when she got shot by that kid in the country, or after the whole Suzie affair. And in that moment Jack hated those creatures for doing this to her as much as he hated himself for bringing her into this world.

"Gwen, come on sweetheart. Wake up," Jack called to her, stroking her hair and face to bring her from whatever darkness had her. Her eyes flickered as she tried to answer the voice, the voice she knew and would give her life to protect. Her boss and her friend.

"Ja….ck" her voice was broken and scratchy

"Gwen baby." Owen came into her focus.

"Ow..en" she tried focus on the face of her lover. She felt as though she had been asleep for an age, her mind was slow to forming any coherent thought past the names of those she trusted.

"We need to get out of here, then we can deal with the aliens," Jack slowly helped her to her feet, his hands lingering upon her as if to make sure she was alive and breathing. It was not a lover's touch and yet it could be taken as such. It was hard to define Jack in her life, he was like a big brother, lover and your best female friend all rolled into one. She could tell him anything and he would just make her feel safe.

Owen and Jack looked up as the ground around them began to shake. The ground bucked and groaned as the sound of engines trying to ignite began to thunder through the tunnels. Between them they dragged Gwen back to where they had seen the leader talking to his men. They were still there, but now they seemed to be chanting, the device that they had found outside the hub and in London, was in the leaders grasp. The device, now whole, pulsed with a violet glow and hummed as its power grew. Then the rocks around the space ship seemed to flicker in and out of existence.

Jack looked over to see Ianto and Tosh come full pelt out of the other tunnel; he rolled his eyes and made a mental note to teach them the finer points of sneaking around an enemy. He aimed his weapon at the aliens that had now noticed the intrusion. The leader emitted a shrill cry as the shaking grew stronger.

"Run!" the Wembly bucked in his grasp as he shouted. He covered his teams retreat seeing Ianto come to stand by his side. Ianto's gun joined his own, the bangs load and ringing in the enclosed space.

"Jack!" Tosh called out to him, with a nod at Ianto to run they both ran full pelt towards the lift. The others were standing inside waiting, Owen's hand was ready on the wire mesh of the lift gate, as soon as Ianto and Jack passed the threshold of the lift Owen slammed the doors down.

"Go!" Owen shouted and Tosh slammed the button for the lift to begin ascending. Jack stood there in muted shock. As great escapes went…this is the worst he had ever been apart of. The lift was only going about walking speed.

"Can't you make this rusting coffin go any faster?" Jack exclaimed as the winged aliens drew closer.

I'm surprised we're getting this much speed! It's ancient Jack!" Tosh gave in to a rare moment of anger, after all, she couldn't have Jack questioning her skill with electronics.

All such worries were dashed from her mind when the ground began to buck and shake. Their pursuers gave a shrill cry before disappearing back into the caves. Owen and Jack held Gwen stable –they didn't know if she had a more serious injury and all this shaking would not help the matter. The metal structure groaned, wheels squealed on their metal cables. The very ground ruptured to give way the gleaming metal of the ship, it seemed to phase in and out of reality. Whatever they were using it seemed to be broken.

Then the lift stopped with a great scream, the whole thing jolted down a moment before tearing free of its structure. All inside gave exclamations of surprise and fear as it finally impacted on the metal of the ship with a shattering clang.

"When did we hitch a ride on the tower of terror?" Owen groaned from his place on the floor, Gwen was laid upon him. Through all of this she still had not stirred, Jack became even more worried at her stillness.

"Owen, how's Gwen?"

"She's still breathing, but we need to get her back to the Hub," Jack nodded his head then began trying to wrench the now warped gate open so they could get out of this death-trap.

All this was put aside as the side of great engines igniting broke the cracking rock.

"HOLD ON!" Jack looked up as the tunnel began to rush past them in their assent,

8888888888

Galen descended below the clouds, the rain thick as it continued to pour down on the welsh landscape. The dark ominous clouds perhaps heralding a misfortune...or it could be the same poxy weather as always and that he should stop reading so much litrature.

_Beware the eyes of March! _Flitted around his head and he couldn't help the snort of laughter that escaped his lips. He had been watching way too much "Up Pompeii" he really shouldn't have caught the re-runs on UK Gold, but bugger it, they would have to put it right after Doc . . .

Galen back winged suddenly as the ground seemed to rise below him, his eyes began to glow red and in consequence his vision cleared in this darkness. But you really would have to be blind not to see the huge glowing ship rip itself from the ground. The ship seemed familiar to him in some way. The name Tarkesh zipped though his mind a second. Was that the aliens name or the type of ship? Not for the first time did Galen wish he had only his own mind in his head.

"JAAAACK!" the scream reached his ears even over the din of the ship and falling stone. The shout from two throats one male one female joined in terror of a falling comrade. There, among the debris and falling matter was the body of Jack, seems he had slipped from the top of the craft. Galen could just make out the forms of the others but his immediate concern was for Jack.

Oh Galen knew Jack would survive the fall but he was quite sure the rest of Jack's team did not, and Galen knew Jack did not want his immortality to become widely known. So with a beat of his wings Galen sped towards the Jack, the wind beneath his wings as sure as the beating of his still human heart.

But his hand could have found a better place to grab hold of Jack to arrest his fall….

8888888888

The ship broke through the earth as if it was paper; it heaved and groaned as the rock scraped against the side of the hull. Jack found a protuberance, but he ripped it sheer off in the strain. He cried out in anguish as he could find no purchase on the glinting metal, it was smooth like glass.

He heard Ianto and Tosh scream his name as the hull disappeared beneath him, with only the wind and the ground to catch him. That didn't worry him so much; sure the sudden stop would hurt like hell. But how in Gods name would he be able to explain that he survived to Ianto, Tosh and Owen? Just as he was trying to think up a good story, unspeakable pain made him cry out.

"OW!"

"We really should stop meeting like this," came the lilting voice of Galen.

"Bloody Hell Galen! Did you have to grab me there?"

"Well I could drop you to the ground if you like"

"Please! It would hurt a lot less!" Jack screamed back, Galen readjusted his hold of so Jack's back was against his body.

"Look I'm sorry okay! But it was the easiest thing to grab while you were falling. If I grabbed your jacket you would just have slipped out of it at that speed."

"So you decided to give me a Wedgy? I've done something to piss you off haven't I? This is some kind of pay back"

"No Jack, now can we forget about this now? More pressing matters..." Galen looked to the ship.

"No we can't talk about this later...it still hurts," Jack gave one last grouse.

"Now you're starting to sound like this Owen I've heard about" Jack seemed to start at this and Galen had to hide a laugh bit to sway him Galen added. "Look I promise to kiss it better later"

"Well then, let's sort some crazy bird aliens out."

Both of them looked up to see hatches open and the aliens come forth from within. They spread their wings and took to the sky heading towards them and the others. From other hatches came small crafts, like a hover platform. Upon them were wingless birds. Maybe a relative of the Dodo? But whatever their lineage… they were in trouble.

"Uh oh," Jack and Galen exclaimed in unison.


	8. Chapter 8: Battle in the Sky

Chapter 8: Battle in the sky

"Aaaiee!"

Jack let out an involuntary yelp as Galen flattened his wings against his body, pulling into a steep dive. Jack seized a fold of his cape until his knuckles turned white. He wouldn't have normally called himself a coward, but there was something about the way the ground rushed towards them like an enraged ex-lover that made him just a trifle nervous.

Above them the aliens cried out as they were out manoeuvred. Jack twisted in Galen's grip and tried to take a few pot shots with his Webley, but as he let off a round of bullets, Galen suddenly spread his wings to catch the wind, and the bullets all went wild.

To make matters even worse the Dodos on hover sleds were chasing them as well. The only saving grace in all of this was the fact that the aliens seemed to be ignoring the others, in favour of chasing him and Galen.

The alien craft had arrested its ascent to the heavens; the clouds seemed to boil around its metal hull, as if it was trying to rip the craft from the sky. All this was shattered with a great roar of sound and wind, causing Galen to beat his wings forcefully, almost frantic to keep them from being blown away. Some of the aliens were not as lucky, they shot past them rolling end over end, feathers flying in the wake as they screamed their terror. The concussive force blew the clouds away from the shining hull, the clouds now in a perfect circle around the craft. As if it was in the eye of a tornado

From the base of the ship came a pillar of red light, it struck the ground immediately below, the ground exploded upwards with fire and red lightening. The aliens crowed in exultation as the beam disappeared. This was their power restored.

"It can never be a "crash, fix ship, go home" job, can it?" Galen complained, "It has to be, "crash, fix ship, world domination" scenario."

"What did you expect? Watch it!" Jack warned as an alien tried to shoot them. Galen easily evaded the red shot.

"I don't know what I expected . . . no you're right. I did expect this, just was hoping to be wrong for a change."

"Gaaaalen," Jack could feel the heat from that last shot as it sizzled past his shoulder. "Think you could get me on one of those sleds?"

"What? In one piece?" Galen replied.

"Preferably." Jack watched as Galen looked over his shoulder to see the few sleds behind them, mixed in with the Dodos were the eagle aliens.

"Sure. Why?"

"Well, I'll use the sled to get to my people while you draw the rest away"

"Hey! Why do I have to be the scapegoat?" Galen shouted, his voice indigent as he looked down at Jack. His eyes glowed red with annoyance, but as much as he tried, there was amusement there too, and he knew Jack could see it.

"Because they're my people!" Jack shouted back with a small smile.

"Yeah, but I'm the superior officer. So in theory you're all my people."

"Then stop whining like a rookie and act like a superior officer," Jack suggested. "Sacrifice yourself for the team." Jack poked Galen in the ribs. "Besides," he added. "You have wings."

"What does that have to do anything?" Galen sounded insulted

"I like your wings," Jack cooed.

Galen couldn't help but snort in a mixture of resigned exasperation as he suddenly dropped one wing downwards. The aliens shot by to their right as the sudden change spun jack and Galen to the left.

But he wasn't done yet. Instead of lifting the wing and correcting the swooping circle, Galen kept it down until he was in almost exactly where he had started –right on the tail of the last Dodo.

Suddenly jack found himself in freefall, landing on the back of the hover craft with a bump that would have permanently put paid to any hopes he might have had for Father's Day if he hadn't turned sideways at the last second. He looked up, just in time to see Galen flirting his wings in and out, sending himself spiralling left and right like some elaborate alien dancer as the Dodos followed him, squawking in frustration.

Jack swiftly grabbed the Dodo and threw it over the side so he could grab the controls. He watched the alien's descent to the earth, it screamed out, calling for help, but the others of its race didn't seem to care.

"Dead as a Dodo," he murmured to himself with a smirk. Then he was heading towards his people.

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Tosh, Ianto and Owen had just seen their commanding officer plummet to his death. They were stuck thousands of feet above the ground, on an alien space craft that could blow up about 5 square miles of the earth per shot. So yeah they were having a great day. Owen was checking over Gwen as Tosh and Ianto held their guns out, aiming them at the aliens. There was a flash of black and glowing red, leather wings moving and collapsing to allow their owner to move and change direction. Then he was gone, dipping out of sight, the aliens following.

"What the hell was that? Another alien?" Owen exclaimed, looking left and right for any sign of this new being with black leather wings.

"He's a friend!"

All heads shot upwards to see Jack standing on a hover sled, grinning that charming schoolboy smile, as though her did this sort on a regular basis. The clouds were still in a circle around them, if they looked up they could see clear night sky, the stars as silent witness to the aliens presence. Ahead where the clouds swirled they could see the rain still pouring down in a sheet. Now the flash of lightening could be seen followed by the growl of thunder, as if the planet was showing its displeasure at having these aliens anywhere near it.

"Come on, let's get out of here!" Jack shouted over the whistling wind. He lowered the hover sled so Owen and Ianto could get Gwen safely on board, and Tosh came to stand beside Jack. She laid a soft hand on his arm as if to check he was real. He gave her his warm smile, patting her hand briefly before setting the controls to get them out of there. The hover sled was responsive and dipped over the edge of the ships metal hull, the blue hover lights reflecting off its gleaming surface. Jack could not suppress the shiver as the reflection reminded him of an enemy with a similar device. The rusty/gold shell. The one blue lit eyestalk.

"Galen! You coming?"

"I'm a little busy at the moment!" Galen shouted in frustration. He was swooping this way and that, dodging shots from their trident-like guns with grace and no little amount of luck.

"Jack, look out!" Galen yelled, but the warning was a little late. A shot glanced off the hover sled, causing it to whine and wobble.

"Ianto! Jump on the gun!" Jack indicated the gun that was bolted on the back. From what he'd seen, the Dodos could use it through the controls, but Jack didn't have the time to figure out how to work it. Ianto would have to take the place of the computer.

Ianto took aim, shooting at the other hover sled and the aliens awing in the sky. One flew down, landing on the barrel of the energy gun, ready to end Ianto's life before any of them could act. But Galen appeared from nowhere, body slamming the alien. They looked on as he twisted the alien's neck before letting it drop to the ground.

"Wow, he's a mean one, Jack." Owen whistled. "That was a precise break."

"You have no idea," Jack replied with a smile.

"Thank you, sir!" Ianto shouted at Galen, he received a nod and a smile in return.

The craft wobbled dangerously this time and Jack knew he could no longer hold her steady let alone in the air. It whined and groaned, trying to hold onto its floating state. The blue dipped and then failed completely.

"Galen!" Jack shouted. Galen swooped down, grabbing hold of the metal railings that were around the craft. With a groan he spread his wings to their full extent, intending to glide down. But he could not hold the weight, he cried out with the strain as he slowed the craft just enough to soften the impact. But Jack knew it was still going to be a hard landing "Brace yourselves!"

Before they hit the ground Galen was ripped from the sled by three of the aliens slamming into him. They rolled on the ground, a mass of snapping beaks, feathers and his black robes. The sled slammed hard into the ground causing all of those aboard to roll onto the sodden earth. Each got up with a groan, Ianto resumed his place on the gun, firing at those that now swooped down.

Tosh and Owen were trying to shelter Gwen from all of this, she had finally stirred from the darkness that held her. Owen was checking her again to see if she had gathered any broken bones from the crash. Jack meanwhile was taking shots at the aliens around Galen. They seemed to be making a beeline for him, as if they saw him as the greater threat to deal with.

Above the tweeting calls of aggression from the aliens came a deep, demonic, growl. They all turned to look where Galen was buried beneath the group of aliens.

Galen was almost hidden from sight by the mass of bodies, but what they could see of him showed a few slashes to his face, his blood pooling on the floor. More joined the fray and Jack saw another alien fall with its neck broken.

Then the deep growl came again, a sound alien and savage enough to make their hair stand on end. The aliens were suddenly thrown into the air and Galen stood tall in the centre.

Tosh gaped, Owen swore quietly, but Jack and Ianto just watched. It was like a scene from some horror flick, but this was real life.

The hood of his robe had fallen back to reveal his silver streaked back hair, which, as they watched, seemed to shimmer with movement as the grey spread until his hair was a uniform shocking silver-white.

But while most of the team barely noticed anything besides the shocking metamorphosis, Jack and Ianto both noticed his face most of all. There was no compassion, no pity, or anything else for that matter. All that could be read was a savage, primal desire for blood and destruction.

Even as they watched, he leapt like a tiger on one of the aliens, and ripped its throat out. He began to drink the warm liquid, the creature still gasping in its death throes. The others came down from the sky, hiding him in a mass of brown feathers. They lunged at him again and again. They all saw him slashed by sharp claws. Then one came up, impaling him on one of its tridents. But that only seemed to anger him, as if the wound was nothing, as if the blood flowing from the wounds in his side was nothing.

Galen ripped them apart without remorse, drinking every bit of blood he could find, his howl of rage and elation chilling the blood that flowed through their veins. He snarled at Jack, revealing large fangs that dripped with the blood of his enemies. Those that were left gave a cry that anyone could figure out contained fear, they wheeled away. Galen stood there, wings hanging limp at his sides as blood dripped from them. He advanced on Gwen, Tosh and Owen, murder plain in his eyes.

"Galen! Stop!" Jack went to stand before him, but he was thrown aside. He looked down to see slash marks down his chest, which bled freely a moment before he watched them close. Galen was still advancing on the others, Owen had raised his 9mm to point at Galen. Before Jack could tell him not to Owen opened fire. The bullets slammed into Galen's chest, blood ejecting from his mouth as he coughed in reaction before another slammed home.

"Owen! Cease Fire! Cease fire!" Jack shouted as he ran towards them, he kicked the gun from Owens hands before turning to Galen. He had stopped, his shoulders slumpt but the defiance and lust for blood still burned in his eyes. There was no recognition in his face.

"Galen . . . Galen stop. You've done enough," Jack said gently, walking towards Galen with his palms out, as if he was trying to sooth a wounded animal.

"Jack, don't" Tosh exclaimed but Jack ignored her in favour of Galen, whom snarled at him.

"Come on Galen, you know me . . . you owe me a drink for the wedgy. Remember? I splat and –"

"Groan…" Galen cut across him, his voice was strained but his eyes dimmed from the blood red hue. He fell to his knees, hand going to his chest as he gave an exclamation of pain. But Jack was there to catch him before he could fall to the ground.

"Easy, Galen" Jack held him gently, turning him onto his back so he was cradled against him, Ianto helping him support the weight .

"Ow . . . well this hurts" Galen moaned, he arched up a moment as he shivered in pain. "What hit me? And why do I feel like…..I've been shot in . . . the chest . . . " he wheezed

"That's because you were," Jack shot Owen an evil glare as he came over.

"Oh . . . that's okay then . . . just so I know I'm not imagining things." He gave a small laugh. Owen took one look at him, the bullet holes that bled freely, and knew there was nothing he could do.

Jack also knew, he had seen death too many times not to. But he didn't want to accept this one, he couldn't. This was the man that had given him the reason to live after the Doctor and Rose. And it wasn't because of a loving relationship, though Jack would have loved to know Galen that way. He was more like a mentor. He had kept Jack by his side for a while, teaching him the ropes. He had pushed for Rockfort to give Jack his own command, and backed him when he had told Rockfort his demands.

"Don't joke Galen, not about this," Jack whispered, he briefly saw Gwen was standing with the help of Ianto off to his right.

"What do you mean? This is the perfect time to joke." Galen laughed.

"I'm sorry, I thought you were going to kill us," Owen added in his defence

"If what happened did happen, I would have" He gave a wan smile.

"What do you mean Galen? What happened?" Jack asked gently.

"Part of my past, maybe I will tell you sometime my friend."

"Galen." The tone Jack used expressed his sorrow; they would be no other time to tell him.

"Jack you have bigger things to worry about" He pointed to the ship.

"We have to stop them Jack," Jack closed his eyes in relief as he heard a voice he had longed to hear again.

"Gwen, I know. But how the heck can I be expected to destroy that thing?"

"With my help. They were in my head, remember?" she pushed free of Ianto to kneel beside them.

"Go on Jack. Get out of here." Galen prodded him. "Time to fly, instead of squelching"

Jack gave a deep bark of laughter as he looked down at Galen, but he had closed his eyes. Jack's heart stopped until he saw his friend take a breath. He gently laid him down as Ianto came up beside him, laying a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"I'll keep an eye on him sir," he said gently, his eyes showing he would not let Galen die alone. Jack laid his hand over Galen's heart in what he knew was a final farewell. Then he stood holding his hand out to Gwen, she took it gladly, smiling as he gave her hand a firm squeeze.

"Well Gwen, seen as you know more at this moment about the aliens. You take the lead." Jack looked at her.

"The ship is vulnerable when it fires that big energy beam. So if we hit that when it fires then it should blow" Gwen looked up at the ship as it slowly began to move.

"Independence Day eat your heart out" Owen rolled his eyes at the cheesiness of it "I hated that film"

"Tosh, help me get this up and running" Jack ordered, indicating the crashed hover sled. "Owen, see if you can find the SUV in one piece. There should be a little toy in the back, under the upholstery of the boot where the spare tire should go"

"You mean we don't have a spare tire?" Owen exclaimed.

"Don't need one, Owen" Tosh informed him. "The tires never go flat"

"Really?" Owen got a mad gleam to his eyes.

"That does not mean you can sit shooting the tires, Owen," Tosh put her hands on her hips in annoyance at Owens childish behaviour.

"Oh Tosh, you never let me have any fun" Owen did an over the top 5-year-old sulk.

Jack smiled at his team, _His team_. Again and again they proved themselves worthy to be in Torchwood. And even more important, that they were people he could trust, his friends. It was thanks to Galen that he had this, that Galen could die here, now, was beyond comprehension. He spared a glance to the wounded man. He looked so vulnerable now, not a word he would ever associate with Galen in the past.

Owen set off in the direction of the SUV at a run while he and Tosh turned to the broken hover sled. He could now hear Galen's rasping breath but he tried to block it out. His mind on the matter at hand as he tried to get the hover sled working again.

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Owen traipsed over the now overly uneven landscape, the destruction from the read beam was extensive, he only hoped the SUV was in one piece. Here and there the ground was charred, even melted in some places. Those places twinkled as the sand and dirt had become glass under the intense heat.

He finally found where they had parked the SUV, the off roader was on its side, some of the windows smashed. But as Tosh has said, the wheels were all still fine. He opened the boot and pulled up the little levered panel to reveal the gun box. Putting in his pass code it opened it to reveal a large gun. It was about the size of a rocket launcher and almost was to the same design. But he could see no ammo in the box. And it looked like it had and energy reactor on the side.

"Big bada boom," Owen smirked before heading back to the others. He found on his return that the hover sled had been semi repaired. It floated but seemed to hiccup every now and then. The hum was off tone as if it was struggling.

"Thanks Owen" Jack waved him over and took the weapon off of him. "How's the SUV?"

"It's been better. I'm no mechanic but it looks to be purely on the body. I should think it would run…though it is on its side"

"Then we are ready to go. Gwen," Jack got on the hover sled and at the call of her name she came to stand by his side. She grabbed hold of the railings as he got the ship up in the air with a wobble. They all watched as they followed the moving alien ship that was heading slowly towards Cardiff.

TBC…..

KITG: God, how many gratuitous movie references have I put in here? I don't know weather that's a good thing or bad thing lol. Hope you enjoy this chapter, wanted it to be an on the edge of you're seat affair. Would be a whole lot better if it were an episode. (Dreams)

See you in time :)


	9. Chapter 9: Victory in the night

KITG: Soooo sorry for the long wait but finally here is the final chapter. it is un-betad as my beta seems to have gone awol. so i hope its not too bad. Thank you for reading this story ans hope you will like all my others.

see you in time

Chapter 9

The alien hovercraft pitched and wavered as the Torchwood botch job on it kept it in the air. In front of them the alien craft moved in a soundless course to the lights that could now be seen in the distance, the outskirts of Cardiff.

Gwen held on tightly to Jack as he piloted the hovercraft towards the alien ship, she still felt muzzy after her experience but she needed to help Jack. She looked at his face as he fought with the controls and smiled, as she now knew a little bit more about the man that had become so important in her life.

The creature or man they had left dying in Ianto's arms seemed to be so important to Jack, past lover perhaps or just a friend? Gwen wanted to know more about this strange man that could move Jack in such a way, so much so that he would nearly cry over the man as he held his hand to the bleeding chest and watched him slowly die. She could see the blood on Jacks hand slowly turn a lighter shade of pink as the rain washed it away.

The clouds that had been blown away boiled around the ship in a raging tempest. As they got close enough the rain stopped, as if passing through a curtain. Gwen could hear the hum of power, as it seemed to suck the lightening from the sky and direct it to the aperture at the base of the ship. There it collected in the arch of dancing light to await its purpose. But this power was not to light a bulb, but to level and entire area. To end the light of life in a blinding moment.

"Gwen, you're in charge here. What's the plan?"

"We need to get close to the light, there should be a box or some kind of conduit there, if we can damage that enough then… boom" She pointed to where the light was pulsing as it charged up. "Down side is if we get too close..I think it will fry this little thing."

"That's a chance we are going to have to take. We need to stop it now. Get ready" Jack sped the craft up as much as he could and headed straight to the glowing base of the ship as Gwen checked her weapon was loaded. As they drew closer they could see the light pulse with more urgency.

Time seemed to slow down, as there was the snap hiss, the knife-edge as the weapon began to fire. Gwen and Jack both aimed their guns at the box as it glowed with power. Their shots sounded tiny in the roar from the ship and thunder. As they entered the thin line of light that herald the destruction that was to come it heated their flesh to near burning as they tried to aim. Jack had to let go of the controls so he could fire in consequence the craft wobbled and pitched.

They were so intent on shooting out the box that they did not see a port open and some of the winged eagles stream out. But the shot from the tridents certainly got their attention. Jack changed the direction of his aim, as he trusted Gwen to hit the box. But then he was thrown to the floor as he was tackled from all sides. The roar of energy went to fever pitch as it was only seconds away from firing…they were too late.

But then all hell broke loose, as there was a loud explosion and they were rolled down the hovercraft, he felt Gwen collide with him as they sailed over the edge and into thin air. He took a moment to see the ship light up like a Christmas tree as the power fed back the only way it could..into the ship. It pitched violently then began to plunge to the ground. Jack held his breath as for a moment it looked like it was going to crash into ground near the millennium fountain. It missed it by inches before skimming over the bay and plunging into the bay waters. The water shot up in a deluge with a load bang. Then the craft began to sink, little explosions making the ship light the water.

All this took but mere moments, now his focus shifted on the ground that was quickly rushing up to meet him and Gwen. He would survive…kind of, but he knew he could do little for Gwen to shield her from the impact. He held onto her tightly as she buried her face into his great coat near his ear. He heard her whisper a thank you and tried to reply but the wind stole his words.

The drop to the ground stopped suddenly as something grabbed hold of Jack around the waist. He tightened his grip on Gwen as the sudden deceleration made him jerk. Jack looked back over his shoulder…. straight into the face of Galen. The man was obviously in great pain, his breath wheezing in his lungs even as his wings tried to beat a broken rhythm. As they all came near the ground he dropped them before turning towards the Millennium tower and disappearing out of sight.

"He's alive!" Jack exclaimed taking off at a run towards the base, he slowed as a car horn beeped behind him. The 4x4 was in bad shape, all its windows gone, the blue glow broken in places where LED's had been damaged. But at least it didn't have flat tyres

They jumped in and sped towards the base.

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Galen was not having one of his better days. It had been years since he had lost control like that, to think he had lost it in front of Jack and his team. He stood limply on the slab as it began to descend into the base, he did not stay there long, he keeled over and landed on the high gantry with a metal "thung" and rattle. He lay there just focusing on breathing as he felt his body try and fix itself.

He coughed as his body purged one bullet into his windpipe. He spat it out hearing it land in the basin with a dull sploosh. Then the dripping as his blood accompanied it to land in the small pool of water..slowly turning it red. But he knew it would stop soon he just needed to rest a bit more. He would have healed sooner but his rescue of Gwen and Jack from their deathly plunge had set him back a little. So he would stay in this dark corner a sleep a little letting the alien thing inside him do its work. He closed his eyes, but could not help the small chuckle escape him ad Ianto's face swam before him. He must have given the man a heart attack when he shot up from his arms and took to the sky.

Galen lay there, feeling the hard grating under his body as he willed sleep to find him. But seems sleep had better things to do than to give him a respite from the pain. He also hated it when he was like this, it was like the filters in his brain fell and visions or memories swamped him. His own mixed with whatever the hell was inside him. From his son, to stars and planets. To fire and death, so it became hard to tell where he began and the others ended. So he sat there sifting through the now and then, the him and the alien. He vaguely heard the large cog door roll back and the sound of running feet but tried to block it out.

"Galen!" he knew that was Jack...the American bellow was so distinctive…especially when he was in an American bar riding one of those mechanical bulls.

He blinked at the image as it flew through his brain…that was one of him…at least he thought is was, though you never knew with jacks past. He knew one of the parts inside him knew Jack or had seen him.

"Galen!"

"Over…here" he croaked out, and then regretted it as feet pounding up the metal steps rang through his head.

"Galen, take it easy". Jacks face came before him as he opened one eye to look.

"Calm..down Jack..I'm fine" Galen whispered as he relaxed.

"We'll get you downstairs"

"Naaa, fine here. I'll be up and about in a while"

"What, you a doctor now? Thought I was the doctor. Hot as I am" That was Owens Voice.

"Nope, not a doctor. But I do know how my body works. Just leave me be a while. Look after your team" Galen sighed and wriggled as if to get comfortable. Owen was about to say more, but Galen coughing up another bullet stopped what he was going to say. He just sat there looking wide-eyed at the piece of metal Galen had coughed up.

"Cool" He exclaimed.

"I know. Now let me sleep."

Owen got up and walked down towards Gwen as she leaned against Ianto. With their help she was led to the medical slash autopsy part of the hub. Let them sort themselves out. He was in no danger of dying.

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"What the hell is with that?" Owen exclaimed as he helped Ianto move Gwen to the table. " He is sat there coughing up bullets and he says he's fine!"

"I have learned not to ask things were Galen is concerned. He gave me my first interview. I worked with him for 6 months before he transferred me to Jack." Ianto explained as he got Gwen settled on the gurney in the centre of the room.

"Have you ever seen him with his top off?"

"Owen why do you automatically assume I have seen him with his top off! Do you think I sleep with….."

"Woah, woah, clam down fransis. I didn't mean you were shagging him. I mean have you seen him without his top off. Seen what's going on under there." Owen shined a light in Gwen's eyes as he checked their responses.

"Well once…don't think I was meant to. He had been stabbed and was changing his top when I came to give him some documents. Not thinking I walked in. His torso looked like frakenstines monster, covered in scars…but that different color skins was the worst part."

"Different color skins?"

"Yeah, looked like he had been cobbled together out of different things…aliens"

Owen whistled at this. "Must be some kind of freak"

"Owen! Not a nice thing to say about the one who saved our lives" Gwen spoke up.

"And then tried to kill us"

"And then saved us again" Gwen levelled a look at him. "Look you finished prodding me? I feel a lot better" Gwen pushed herself off the metal table with a smile and kissed Owen on his cheek.

"Oh now I get a kiss, I fell honoured" he groused but it held no malice as a smile was on his face, then he was giving her a hug soon followed by the others.

"Aww group hug. Missed me then" Gwen mumbled under all the bodies.

"You have no idea" Jack laughed.

They made their way back into the main HUD to sit below the Torchwood train sign where the couch was against the wall. Ianto got them all coffees and also as an after thought ordered some pizzas when Gwen's stomach rumbled. So they sat and talked, hands brushing Gwen's form as if they were all trying to confirm she was here and whole.

When the cog door rolled back for a moment they thought it was Ianto coming back with the pizzas until they realised.. Ianto was sat with them. As the door rolled back armed men moved in with sure and precise movements, each taking position to cover all in the room.

"What's going on?" Jack exclaimed rising to his feet but he was knocked back down and a gun cocked in his face.

"Don't move!" He barked at Jack as all other guns in the room cocked into readiness. The man who seemed to be in command spoke into a mouthpiece. "The room is secure"

The cog rolled open again to admit a rather smug character, his aura seemed to radiate greed for power. Jack almost snarled as he saw the mans face.

"Verdely"

"Ah, captain Jack. It is so good to be remembered." He sneered as he looked around the base as if he owned it.

"What do you want here Verdely?"

"We are here to arrest you all of course. But especially that girl" He almost snarled as he pointed at Gwen, anger flashing across his eyes. The others moved to stand before Gwen, shielding her from this intruder to their home.

"For what reason?"

"For murder, and treason to the crown." Verdely moved his face right into Jacks angry eyes boring into the captains. "Did you really think you would get away with murdering my cousin DeRano?"

Verdely whirled away as his anger seemed to boil, he walked back and forth a moment before motioning his hand for his men to hold them. Each of them were held fast as Verdely pulled a gun from his side to point it at Gwen.

"I think its only fair, a life for a life" He pointed the gun directly at Gwen's head.

"Stop it! You have no authority!" Jack exclaimed as he fought against the soldier holding him.

"I have every authority. Rockfort is week, keeping pets and people like you in such high command. You have made a mess of it Jack. Its time a firm hand was at the helm of Torchwood. We have pandered to aliens long enough. Now they will listen to us or they will die" His voice strong with his conviction as he ranted

"If you do that, the earth will be destroyed before you can blink. Every race will try to wipe us from the universe for those we have killed" Jack tried reason but reason would have no place here.

"Then we will kill them as well. Now as for this woman" Verdely's finger moved on the trigger, as he slowly added pressure. Everyone screamed at Verdely to stop. But one voice overrode all

"Stand down Verdely!" All heads turned to the commanding voice, there stood Galen. Hood raised, wings outstretched and with an aura that screamed he would only ask once.

"Ah..and the half-breed shows itself!"

"Oh look at all the cockroaches that have come out of the wood work." Galen snarled back as he walked down the stairs. He held himself tall and powerful, no signs of pain in his form and the men with Verdely backed off to a commanding officer.

"You are under arrest as well" Verdely smirked, but that fell as Galen began to laugh. A deep mocking tone that made Verdely growl.

"Oh you have got to be joking, take you little power trip back to headquarters. Men Stand down and dismiss" Galen spoke to the soldiers. They moved without question, saluting the superior officer and leaving the hub.

"Halt, you are under my command! This creature is a traitor!" Verdely shouted but blanched as he felt an oppressive atmosphere envelop him. He heard Jacks team gasp. He turned to look at Galen and took an involuntary step back at what he saw.

Galen had lowered his hood, his eyes glowing blood read as sharp canines gleamed in the light His voice was more of a growl as he spoke.

"You will leave now, you will not come to this base again, and you will not talk to anyone in this base again. For if I find out you have, I will tear you limb from limb for insubordination. Now go!"

Verdely looked like he wanted to kill all of them as he turned to walk back towards the cog door. "This isn't over half breed," He threatened.

"It is, I'm sure Rockfort will want a word with you when I make me report. Now crawl back to your rock.

They all watched, as Verdely walked from the base, the cog door rolling back to is customary place. They all looked back as they saw Galen collapse on his knees with a small, understated "Ow"

They all rushed over to Galen, moving him to the couch. Before he could object Owen was taking off the robe, exposing a leather biker vest. His arms exposed. As was a little of his chest. From the top of the right side of his neck they could see the black, leathery skin were it met human flash. Both were marred with old suture scars.

"Happy now?" Galen snarled at them as they stared. "Got to see the freak?"

He tried to move away but Jacks hands on his face stopped him, making him meet the captain's eyes.

"I don't see a freak, I see a friend that's in pain and we are worried"

"Jacks right Galen" Gwen added, laying a hand on his arm. They watched as the red receded to nothing in his eyes as he calmed down.

"Sorry, old habits. You needn't worry I'm healing." He sighed, he jerked as Owen started prodding.

"Ok.. I'll bite. How you doing it?" Owen asked as he saw the bullet wounds no longer bled. They watched as he took of the leather vest. Mildly noting that there were holes in the vest where his shoulder blades where.

Galen's body was not a pretty sight, black meeting healthy human pink. He really did look like he had been made out of spare parts. They looked round his body, seeing scars upon scars.

"One of the organs they placed inside me has some kind of regenerating properties. Takes a little time. But as long as the organ itself is not injured I can come back from most injuries."

"Like what?"

"Hum…lets see…decapitation..As long as someone places my head back on. Shot in the head, heart. Heart ripped out. Etc"

"Ow, ow ,ow and ow" Owen exclaimed.

"But as long as I am not hit here" Galen pointed to were his neck met body. Below his Adams apple. "Given some time I will heal"

Galen went on to tell him his story. He could see Jacks jaw clench as he told it, angry on Galen's behalf. The pizza came, they ate and he continued, he told them of how he met Jack, causing all but Owen to hug Jack at the thought of him trying to kill himself.

Galen smiled at this, glad that Jack had found a place to belong, a family. Finally his story was finished. He stretched his wings and body with a smile. It felt as if some weight had been lifted from him.

"Well I had better return to head quarters and let you continue with your lives." Galen reclaimed his clothes and made a move for the door.

"Don't be a stranger Galen" Jack hugged him patting him on his back.

"I won't. You lot take care. I don't want to have to bail you out again" Galen smirked, and then as the slab lowered he shot into the sky, heading home.

"Glad that's all over.." Gwen sighed with relief. But was short lived as she stiffened.

"Gwen. What is it?"

"Oh my God! What am I going to tell Rhys?"

The end!


End file.
